There's much ado in Big Nothing but that's what it amounts to. A huffing, puffing crime farce that throws its plot straws together as quickly as possible, it's riddled with flat dialogue and leaves its characters no room to manouevre.
David Schwimmer regurgitates his gulping Ross routine in an effort to create sympathy for luckless schmuck Charlie, while cuddly Brit Simon Pegg fires comedy blanks as Gus, the charmless American chancer who cons him into a blackmail scam. As the shrill femme fatale who joins their desperate caper, Alice Eve is less Double Indemnity than dreadfully unlikely. And the secondary roles are so underwritten that one can only presume that Mimi Rogers, Natascha McElhone and Jon Polito must have owed someone a favour.
The script was co-written by French director Jean-Baptiste Andrea (whose Dead End was a tight, Twilight Zone-style novelty) with Billy Asher who helps himself to the part of a deputy but couldn't help many of the gags over the language barrier. They even resort to the old 'let's put the caller on hold and abuse them/oh no, they weren't actually on hold' chestnut.
Stylistically it's a lot like Brian De Palma's Raising Cain mixed with Sam Raimi's A Simple Plan without being anywhere near as good as either. Andrea allows no time for any potential humour or tension to develop from the ever-intensifying barrage of twists, crosses and double-crosses. But he does add to the urgency with several unnecessary split-screens and animated bits. The effect is, paradoxically, quite tedious.
David Schwimmer regurgitates his gulping Ross routine in an effort to create sympathy for luckless schmuck Charlie, while cuddly Brit Simon Pegg fires comedy blanks as Gus, the charmless American chancer who cons him into a blackmail scam. As the shrill femme fatale who joins their desperate caper, Alice Eve is less Double Indemnity than dreadfully unlikely. And the secondary roles are so underwritten that one can only presume that Mimi Rogers, Natascha McElhone and Jon Polito must have owed someone a favour.
The script was co-written by French director Jean-Baptiste Andrea (whose Dead End was a tight, Twilight Zone-style novelty) with Billy Asher who helps himself to the part of a deputy but couldn't help many of the gags over the language barrier. They even resort to the old 'let's put the caller on hold and abuse them/oh no, they weren't actually on hold' chestnut.
Stylistically it's a lot like Brian De Palma's Raising Cain mixed with Sam Raimi's A Simple Plan without being anywhere near as good as either. Andrea allows no time for any potential humour or tension to develop from the ever-intensifying barrage of twists, crosses and double-crosses. But he does add to the urgency with several unnecessary split-screens and animated bits. The effect is, paradoxically, quite tedious.