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John Plummer (Jason Lee) and Elaine Warner (Leslie Mann) finally reach their $30k goal. They plan to put a down payment on a house and get married. He works for Elaine's dad (Dennis Farina) who hates him. He visits his trailer trash sister Patty Plummer (Megan Mullally) and his hardworking niece Noreen (Tammy Blanchard). Noreen announces that she got into Harvard and reminds him that he had promised to pay for it. All she needs is another $30k. He is conflicted and his idiot friend Walter P. 'Duff' Duffy (Tom Green) comes up with various crazy and illegal ideas. Police detective Charles (John C. McGinley) intends to catch the two idiot criminals.
One may expect me to say that this is all Tom Green's fault. One would be wrong. He's fine as the idiot friend and his character has a sliver of redeeming quality. He's not good but he's not the root of the problem. The root of the problem starts with the Harvard premise. In what world would Noreen expect John to come up with the money. He's not mister money bags. How does anyone with a clue expect that from an offhanded promises? It should not come from Noreen. It needs to come from Patty without Noreen's knowledge. It should be a promise coming from guilt. Let me write it. Patty reminds John when he accidentally dropped baby Noreen on her head and then he makes the promise. That is much funnier and the guilt would hold him to the promise.
Next is Elaine. It makes her a B when he can't just tell her about the situation. Once the house is in escrow and they can't get back the money, he can simply tell her the truth and the movie can move on. The three of them are vastly superior and funnier than the duo. Leslie Mann and Tom Green are hilarious fighting each other. The movie missed the opportunity for the trio to get into more crazy misadventures. Overall, the third act is a lot of fun but it takes a lot of bland nonsense to get there.
score 5/10
SnoopyStyle 7 September 2020
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw6073841/ |
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25-2-2021 00:36:10