TUCCI AND ARQUETTE'S REALLY HARD SELL.

Byline: Stephen Holden The New York Times

Let's hope that Evan Dunsky's gleefully paranoid comedy ``The Alarmist'' doesn't give some unscrupulous salesman of the kind found in a David Mamet play any ideas for devilish new scams.

Imagine a company dealing in home security systems that drums up business by finding out when potential customers are going to be out of the house, breaks into their homes to create a panic, then aggressively peddles its wares to the neighborhood's frightened residents. Sometimes the company even stages bogus semi-break-ins when customers are at home to terrorize them into making costly impulse purchases.

The weasel behind this operation is Heinrich Grigoris (Stanley Tucci), a slick, high-powered salesman. In one of the subtlest, most delicious performances of his career, Tucci imbues this unsavory character with enough sleazy, back-slapping charm and man-to-man ``sincerity'' to make you begin to see the world through his unapologetically larcenous eyes.

Actually, ``The Alarmist'' sees the world through two pairs of eyes. One belongs to Heinrich; the other to his ingenuous eager-beaver protege and star salesman Tommy Hudler (David Arquette). Tommy is the epitome of a tail-wagging gung-ho young salesman, but he is also an almost nauseatingly straight arrow. One evening when he and his boss are driving around Los Angeles after having downed a few cocktails, Heinrich insists they stop in front of a well-appointed red-brick house. To his protege's shock, Heinrich blithely skips up to the front door and kicks it in, setting off a cacophony of alarms, then dashes back to the car like a little kid who's just pulled off a triumphant prank.

The movie, adapted from Keith Reddin's play ``Life During Wartime,'' isn't just about thievery and shady business ethics. It is also a free-floating satire of various modes of American looniness, Southern California style.

In scenes that suggest a no-fault late-'90s variation of ``The Graduate,'' Tommy embarks on an affair with Gale Ancona (Kate Capshaw), an attractive 40ish divorcee who becomes his first major customer. Gale has a teen-age son, Howard (Ryan Reynolds), who is only a few years younger than Tommy. Some of the movie's squirmier scenes find Tommy awkwardly trying to playing surrogate father to a boy who turns out to be more sophisticated than he is.

Tommy and Gale have sharply clashing notions about the meaning of their relationship. The emotionally myopic young salesman insists that Kate is his true love and dreams of marrying her. To Gale, he is nothing more than some pleasant recreational sex. Their points of view collide when Tommy coerces a reluctant Kate into meeting his family, and in an extremely funny sequence that reveals Capshaw's skills at deadpan comedy, Gale retaliates by making outrageously inappropriate sexual remarks that leave Tommy's family cowering in embarrassment.

But shortly after the halfway point, ``The Alarmist'' takes a dramatic u-turn into a murder mystery in which Tommy suspects his boss of being the killer. At this point, a movie that succeeded as a light, loopy satire of sex, salesmanship, shoddy ethics, gun nuts and geeky teen-agers finds itself seriously in over its head. Unable to decide where to go or what tone to adopt, it ends up treading water.

THE FACTS

The film: ``The Alarmist'' (R; sexuality and language).

The stars: David Arquette, Stanley Tucci, Kate Capshaw, Mary McCormack and Ryan Reynolds.

Behind the scenes: Directed by Evan Dunsky. Written by Dunsky, based on the play ``Life During Wartime'' by Keith Reddin. Produced by Dan Stone and Lisa Zimble. Released by Avalanche Releasing.

Running time: One hour, 33 minutes.

Playing: Laemmle's Sunset 5, West Hollywood; Landmark's Westside Pavilion Cinemas in West Los Angeles.

Our rating: Three stars.