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| Thanks to falsified dental records, retired hitman Jimmy "The Tulip" Tudeski (Bruce Willis) faked his own death and has taken up a new line of work as a homemaker for his wife Jill (Amanda Peet), a novice assassin who has yet to pull off a clean hit. Suddenly, an uninvited and unwelcome connection to their past appears. It's their former neighbor Oz (Matthew Perry) who begs them to help rescue his wife from the Hungarian mob. The mission mounts into Mafioso mayhem, in this screwball sequel to the 2000 hit comedy The Whole Nine Yards.
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Here's what our members thought of this title. 5 stars = very good, 1 star = poor.
 |  | "In the heart of suburbia, a hit man with heart has just moved in."
The end of Friends left fans with an all-star super-sitcom sized hole in their lives that must now be filled by something else. What the world needs right now is a generous helping of Matthew Perry, master of the sarcastic one-liner and elaborate comedy pratfall, to help ease our pain. To see us through the lengthy mourning period that began the moment Rachel, Ross, Monica, Joey, Phoebe and Chandler went their separate ways, no longer there for us. The Whole Ten Yards should cheer you up, though, a spirited sequel to comedy classic The Whole Nine Yards.
Besides Perry returning to his most successful big screen role as nervous dentist Oz, the movie reunites the entire original cast, except of course for hulking actor Michael Clarke Duncan, whose hitman character didn’t survive the first movie. And though he also didn’t live to see the end of the last movie, comedian Kevin Pollak, best known for doing the funniest and most accurate Captain Kirk impression of all time, returns in the sequel as his own dead character’s father, hidden under heavy make-up as elderly mob boss Laszlo, determined to avenge his crazy son’s murder. Which is bad news for retired professional killer Bruce Willis, deranged girlfriend Amanda Peet and stunning eye-candy Natasha Henstridge, whose kidnap sparks Oz to reunite the old team for a second round of farcical adventure.
Rather than detail the plot ourselves, we think it’s best you hear it direct from Oz. "Everything’s wrong," he says in a characteristic flap. "Nothing’s right. Cynthia got kidnapped by a bunch of Hungarian killers. And instead of calling the FBI or police, like every other rational man, I thought to myself, ‘Hey, let’s try to get in contact with somebody else that kills a lot of people.’ So I went down to Mexico - which is heavily underdeveloped by the way - and I asked him to help me out. Did he help me out? No he didn’t help me out! Know what he did do? He put on bunny slippers, shot at me and then cooked me some chicken..."
That’s right, folks: Willis is crazy now, no longer a stone cold killer, now an obsessive homebody obsessed with cooking and cleaning. And while he worries about the dinner, Peet nags on at him to resume his own ways, increasingly desperate to break in to the world of contract killing. It’s a silly, twisty story full of sarcastic one-liners and jocular violence, a welcome return to the Perry/Willis double act of mad and madder.
Director Howard Deutch knows a thing or two about comedy. Though he first made his name in the Eighties with Brat Pack classic Pretty in Pink, he’s spent the majority of his time since cranking out lightweight funnies like John Candy joke fest The Great Outdoors, and more recently, Grumpier Old Men and Odd Couple II, which proves he knows something about sequels as well. Perry and Deutch are hoping to collaborate on a second project, The Beginning of Wisdom, co-starring actor dad John Bennett Perry, which should be interesting.
For now, though, we have The Whole Ten Yards to keep us busy, a likeable treat from a confident director and a memorable cast of comedy show offs. And Peet and Henstridge aren’t exactly hard on the eye, either. Look out too for the Buttercup Scout scene – that’s Willis’s daughter Tallulah Belle calling Perry a putz. For maximum enjoyment, we suggest a triple bill - the first two movies and a large case of beer.
© 2005 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All rights reserved.
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