The Whole Nine Yards (2000)

Nick Oseransky is a struggling Montreal dentist who has spent most of his married life paying off the debts of his wife's father in order to divorce her. Her dislike of Oz is mutual and when she learns that their new neighbour is the a hit man with a price on his head, she dangles the carrot of divorce in front of Oz with a money making plan.

Sophie gets Oz to travel to Chicago in an attempt to earn a finder's fee by telling the mob boss where to he can find Jimmy. However, Oz's wife Sophie double crosses him by informing Jimmy Tudeski of Oz's plan in the hope of collecting a bumper life insurance payout. From this point on the double crosses mount, people don't appear to be who they claim they are and if you blink you'll miss an important piece of the puzzle.

The picture is bright, clear and sharp with no artifacting and has an average bit-rate throughout the film. However, certain scenes can appear to be grainy at times with occasional imperfections in the picture. It is also nice to have the choice of widescreen and full screen versions of the film.

The sound is average with nothing really exciting for this type of film. However, the flashback memories of Oz as he realises who he has as a neighbour is quite impressive. Other than that it is mainly a dialogue based film with the occasional use of the surround channel by the musical score and atmospheric sounds. The quiet country suburb sounds on the menu system are quite good and the twittering birds had me looking out of the window at times.

Although this was an enjoyable film with plenty of twist and turns in the eventual predictable plot, I was constantly annoyed by Mathew Perry's character. He played Oz as his character Chandler straight out of Friends. I couldn't believe how similar the characters could be with his nervous wise cracks and clumsiness. Talk about being typecast!