Whatever happened to Garry Marshall? The beginning of the decade saw two entertaining movies from him, PRETTY WOMAN (which would have been even better if someone else besides Richard Gere was in the lead) and FRANKIE AND JOHNNY. But then came EXIT TO EDEN, which was absolute dreck, and then this film. Admittedly, it starts out promisingly, with the various cons Greg Kinnear pulls being funny. But attempts to make a Frank Capra style movie misfire, as they almost always do; you need the right touch to do that, and almost none of the filmmakers today can resist being too saccharine. And what was Laurie Metcalf thinking? She plays a co-worker of Kinnear's who is neurotic to the point of unbelievable. She's most famous for playing Roseanne's sister on ROSEANNE, but while that character was neurotic, there was a lot more to her than that, and we understood why. Here, it's just schtick. About the only one who stays funny here is Tim Conway, but he can't help here.
