The dashing and debonair (in his mind anyway) but shiftless Benny O’Malley (Peter Dobson) finds his way into a small local bar and charms his way into a free beer from the attractive barmaid, Tanya (Lara Flynn Boyle). When he insists on walking said barmaid home and discovers that she’s married, he returns to the bar to take her co-worker home (and to bed, of course).
As luck would have it just after that chance meeting Tanya discovers that her “disabled” husband has withheld disability money from the family coffers even as she works overnights to support them both and he gives all her tip money to the church in hopes of a miracle to heal his bad knee so he can go back to playing professional baseball.
Enraged, Tanya leaves her husband and moves in with another regular bar patron named Jesse (Danny Nucci) and from there plots her revenge on her tight-fisted and self-centered husband…with the help of Benny, who hatches an elaborate plan to trick the man out of his money by creating a “true miracle” at the local mission.
Luckily I didn’t go into this film expecting a whole lot, there wasn’t much on the movie channels so I picked one that sounded like it could end up half-decent…well, half-decent may be going a little far, but if you’re looking for some good empty-headed viewing with a bit of non-teenage eye candy this could be your film. I’m not much a judge of women but I can say the barmaids sure looked hot to me, and while Dobson was just a little too much the smooth grease ball for my taste Nucci sure filled in on the male side of the looks. Unfortunately, good-looking people aren’t what make a movie…at least, not a good one.
The script and plot were mediocre at best…the entire time I just got the feeling of having heard the story before. I can’t recall ever watching any movies with a similar plot, maybe I’m just thinking of something similarly anti-male or one of the dozens of heist and embezzlement flicks I’ve seen in the past; whatever the reason no part of the story really leapt out at me.
While some of the actors were fairly experienced and generally considered to be pretty good actors all of the performances in this film seemed pretty two-dimensional and canned with the possible exception of Nucci. In all, though, for a collection of characters that are all supposed to be either intimately involved with each other or wish they were I saw pretty much no on-screen chemistry.
Overall this isn’t a bad movie if the anti-male bits and the nudity don’t bother you but it’s definitely nothing spectacular…in other words, an alright film for a lazy afternoon when you have nothing else to do but not one I’d go out of my way to see and probably won’t bother to see again.
