The Whole Nine Yards

Roger Ebert & The Movies
Feb. 19, 2000

Transcript of "The Whole Nine Yards" review

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ROGER EBERT: Matthew Perry plays a dentist from Chicago, now very unhappily married in Montreal to Rosanna Arquette, in "The Whole Nine Yards," a good-natured comedy that I enjoyed a lot more that I expected to. His life takes a dramatic turn when he realizes that his new next-door neighbor, played by Bruce Willis, is Jimmy the Tulip, a notorious Chicago hitman who has just been released from prison. Arquette stirs up trouble by urging her husband to betray their new neighbor to the Chicago mobster who hates him, and then they can collect the finder's fee.

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ROGER: At work, the dentist is comforted by his new receptionist, played by Amanda Peet in a comic performance so perfectly modulated almost everything she does is kind of funny.

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ROGER: Perry is confused all through the movie as to which side is which.

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ROGER: I like the minimalist approach of Bruce Willis, who doesn't go after laughs but waits until they come to him. Matthew Perry doesn't overdo the bumbling straight man. Amanda Peet, who hero-worships Jimmy the Tulip and dreams of someday growing up to be a professional killer herself, is wonderful. She steals every scene she's in.

MICHAELA PEREIRA: Sitting in the theater, tears running down my face. Matthew Perry was brilliant! It was like Chandler from "Friends" was dropped into an episode terribly gone wrong of "The Sopranos." It was perfect. His physical comedy-dead on. Dead on!

ROGER: He's fabulous. And then Amanda Peet…

MICHAELA: She's great.