Recently, hype has declared that “Nothing to Lose” is as good as buddy comedy classic “48 Hours.” There’s really only one flaw in that reasoning: “48 Hours” was funny.
These days, there are two kinds of successful comedies. One is the wild, wacky style of Jim Carrey, and the other is plot-driven, with well-written jokes along the way, like “My Best Friends Wedding,” for instance. “Nothing to Lose” falls hopelessly short of both areas.
Surprising, for a film starring such names as Tim Robbins and Martin Lawrence. Robbins has proven himself to be amazingly versatile, pulling off effective characters in both “The Shawshank Redemption” and “I.Q.,” a comedy. Lawrence is a fabulous comedian, and his past movie outings haven’t disappointed.
So, why did “Nothing to Lose” fail so miserably? It sports one of the worst scripts I have ever seen. Lawrence talks non-stop for eternities, and the extent of Robbins’ involvement much of the time is limited to disapproving glances.
The film opens with Nick (Robbins) and his wife (Kelly Preston) professing their love for each other in quite a unique way, and the first ten minutes of the film detail how perfect Nick’s life is, and how much he and his wife love each other.
So, when he gets home early to find her in bed with his boss, he is understandably destroyed. For whatever reason, he drives off in no particular direction. When stopped at a traffic light in a bad neighborhood, though, it gets worse as T. (Lawrence) hops in his car and robs him.
Instead of giving in, however, Nick starts driving like a madman until T. agrees forget the robbery if Nick will let him go. No deal. Then, in a startling (and unhumorously silly) twist, they agree to rob Nick’s boss, who apparently keeps several hundred thousand dollars in a wall safe.
By this point in the film, the rest of it is blatantly and painfully predictable, and getting duller. The best twenty five minutes of this film would’ve made for a failed television pilot.
There’s really not much to say about the performances; Robbins and Lawrence didn’t do anything badly except pick the screenplay. Kelly Preston does her usual good turn as an all-too-perfect wife gone wrong, and Irma P. Hall is outstanding in her bit part as T.’s mother.
In this summer’s arena of wall-to-wall suspense-thrillers, there aren’t a lot of comedic alternatives, but even Jackie Chan’s latest offering, “Operation Condor” is much funnier than “Nothing to Lose” despite its status as an action film.
As the slogan says, the characters in this film may have had “everything to gain, and nothing to lose,” but the same could be said for the movie.
Grade: D-