A mild-mannered blue-collar worker stuck in the minimum-wage blues plots to steal a valuable document from the estate where an old college friend is currently housesitting; he gets his girlfriend involved, but will vengeful thugs spoil their plans? Not so much a psychological thriller as a shaggy dog story, a black comedy filled with indecisive, unbelievable losers. Ted Griffin wrote the screenplay, and his dialogue is mind-bogglingly ludicrous (at one point, frustrated Josh Brolin cries, "I just wanted to get laid, instead I got f****d!"). This low-level of wit permeates everything in the scenario, turning nearly all the plot-points into dumb red herrings (the peanuts, the cigarette fire, the neon signs, even the song playing on the car radio!). Reese Witherspoon co-stars, and she's green enough to go along but professional enough not to look very enthused about it. The male leads are filled by Alessandro Nivola, a Jeremy Piven lookalike with a tight little smirk, and Brolin, who continually talks too loud and seems unsure what to project with his body language (he alternately stands stock still or moves about waving his arms). There's always a stupid-clause in pictures like these (with the proviso being, if there wasn't one--there would be no movie). Here it arrives with Nivola giving Brolin a ride even though he doesn't want him along. Brolin's excuse for coming: he's hungry. I was, too, after watching this fatally undernourished modern noir. *1/2 from ****
Review of Best Laid Plans
