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Sweet is how things begin between the comedy's odd couple. Deceptively sweet, that is.

Snow-topped tax litigator Peter Sanderson (Steve Martin) describes himself to his new online interest as an exciting criminal attorney with light hair.

"Boyishly light," he adds.

And when "lawyer-girl" Charlene Morton (Queen Latifah) types back a rundown of her day -- including that she "poked around in the yard" -- she forgets to mention the part about the yard being in the penitentiary.

Finally the two meet, and that's where Latifah's varying charms come into play. She's got sass and smarts aplenty, powering the most interesting character here.

But Peter needs some convincing.

Uptight and, deep down, still in love with his ex-wife, Kate (Jean Smart), he wants nothing to do with the loud black convicted armed robber he thought was a leggy blond legal whiz. (Unlike her relentless suitor -- fellow aging white attorney Howie Rottman, hilariously portrayed by Eugene Levy.)

But Charlene sees Peter as the best hope to clear her name, and craftily shows the goofy stuffed shirt Martin has played many times before how assisting her would also be a plus to him.

Her lessons in hipness not only give "P. Diddy," as she soon calls Peter, another opportunity to dust off some of those rhythm-challenged moves from Martin's 1979 film "The Jerk" but also merit a second glance from Kate. When his teenage daughter (Kimberly J. Brown) sneaks out with a slimy octopus of a guy, Charlene saves the day by hanging him over a ledge. And with some assistance from Peter's copy of Giant Juggz magazine, she even speeds his son (Angus T. Jones) along with his reading skills.

Of course, there have to be bumps in their road. The stuffy billionaire client (Joan Plowright) that Peter is trying to woo breaks into what she calls "a lovely sad negro spiritual" during a soul-stirring dinner that Charlene, in the guise of a maid, is preparing. Peter's ex-sister-in-law, Ashley (Missy Pyle), a gold digger of the Anna Nicole Smith variety, makes it known from the start that she thinks the "welfarish" Charlene shouldn't be residing in her niece and nephew's home. And living right across the street is the bigoted sister of Peter's boss (Betty White), who wonders aloud whether "those Latin people" she spotted should be on their high-end block without a leaf blower.

Believe it or not, things get even dicier than this, but even when bullets, strangely enough, fly, the old fish-out-of-water story line still lands in the safe, predictable spot you expect.

It's the getting there that's all the fun.