- So this is how a retired mass murderer acts.
- No. This is how a retired mass murderer acts when people show up uninvited.

I enjoyed The Whole Nine Yards quite a bit. It was silly, but had some good comedy and was all around a good time. So when The Whole Ten Yards was on HBO this week I watched it. Sure, I knew it wasn't going to be that good, but that's what tired Friday nights are for right?

Sure enough, it wasn't that good. It was actually kind of peculiar in the way it wasn't that good. It's clear early on that most of the characters are in on some kind of plot, but we're never really sure who's in on it or how deep it goes. This means that we're not sure if all the gags that follow are funny or not. If the characters are caught in this absurd situation and are making it up as they go along, then yeah, they're kind of funny. But if the characters are following some plan that requires absurd actions, then no, it's not funny. As a viewer I didn't know which one of those it was most of the time, which meant the whole movie just had no wind in its sails.

Without that, if we'd just know what was real and what was planned (from the character's point of view) then the movie would have been a forgettable, reasonably funny popcorn movie. Instead they got a forgettable, mostly dull popcorn movie.

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