Mostly, because there is not much of a plot to speak of.
Which is okay, superficially, considering this is the sort of movie, owing much to the actors, that does not need a solid plot.
That said, a word now about Matthew Perry. Would someone please bend his ear and tell him he is not a movie star? That he has never been a movie star? That he will never be a movie star?
A television star, yes. A movie star, no.
That he fails to understand this most basic of facts goes to explain why movies he appears in do not do well at the box office. Or as well as they might.
That said let us now speak of Perry's latest transgression into the territory of the silver screen: "The Whole Nine Yards".
"The Whole Nine Yards" opens on a professional hit man, Jimmy Tudeski (Bruce Willis), known as Jimmy the Tulip, who has moved in next door to a Montreal-based dentist named Oz Oseransky (Matthew Perry). Oz should have a wonderful life, but has a miserable life because of his French-Canadian wife, Sophie (Rosanna Arquette), who chain-smokes cigarettes and wishes he were dead. So unpleasant is Sophie that Jill (Amanda Peet), Oz's dental assistant suggests Oz have her wacked.
This, in a way, goes to explain why a plot is not needed. Everyone is having someone wacked in this movie.
Jimmy the Tulip is being pursued by Janni Gogolak (Kevin Pollack), a Chicago thug, who wants him wacked. Sophie wants Oz to go to Chicago and rat on Tulip so they can collect the finder's fee on Jimmy's head. Oz is reluctant to do this but goes to Chicago and is taken in by Janni's henchman, Frankie Figs (Michael Clarke Duncan), and is brought to Gogolak, where wacking and punching and wacking and punching and other things wacking-like get going, comedy-style.
Not much of a plot, as noted. And Perry's presence on the big screen doesn't help this omission.
If this movie had been made for television--network or cable--it could have succeeded. On the big screen it doesn't. On the big screen the momentum that would come of this type of comedy never quite takes and the funny moments that should be funny aren't. Perry does have a certain comedic talent and riff, but it is lost here, reinforcing why he should stay with the small screen and the success he finds there.
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