OxfordPress.com

Rate it: Write your own review

Review: It's not just Mafia types who need the services of a shrink ("Analyze This," "The Sopranos"). Now it's the cops.

In "Gun Shy," another comic look at life in organized crime, Liam Neeson is an undercover DEA agent so stressed out by a failed sting operation that he joins a therapy group. They are a pathetic bunch of aging yuppies bitching about how they hate their jobs and their bosses. When Neeson starts telling about his activities, they are shocked.

Neeson's new assignment is to act as the middleman in a big-money deal between a vicious mobster, Fulvio Nesstra (Oliver Platt), and an equally gun-happy Colombian drug dealer, Fidel Vaillar (Jose Zuniga). Neeson retains his cool in dealing with the toughs, but inside he is churning.

His stomach problems require medical treatment, which leads him to nurse Judy Tipp (Sandra Bullock). Talk about "meeting cute": Their first encounter is when she gives him an enema.

Neeson continues his operation, desperately striving to keep the two parties from killing each other while struggling to maintain his cover. It helps that neither the Colombian nor the Mafiosi are too bright. It doesn't help that someone back at DEA is trying to sabotage him.

"Gun Shy" is the first directorial effort of Eric Blakeney, who also wrote the script. He shows real promise with clever dialogue and plotting, and especially with creating a gallery of intriguing characters.

Liam Neeson, best known for straighter heroic roles in films such as "Schindler's List" and the "Star Wars" prequel, reveals a sharp talent for comedy. It's refreshing to see a hero with failings, however intestinal.

Sandra Bullock shines with her usual caustic style, a welcome counterweight to the all-male doings. She is also the film's producer, and has exercised admirable restraint in not giving herself more involvement in the main plot.

A Fu Manchu mustache helps give more menace to the usually affable Oliver Platt. He is just as unhappy with his job as members of the therapy group. His father-in-law, Don Minetti (Frank Vincent), berates him, and his wife (Mary McCormack) excoriates his incompetence. What's more, he claims to be the only Italian who can't grow tomatoes.

The drug dealer, Jose Zuniga, and his boyfriend, Andy Lauer, also provide comedic moments. Their portrayals seem certain to infuriate Colombians.

Blakeney has provided a climax that is neat but not too credible, but what the hey, this is comedy, isn't it?

— Bob Thomas, Associated Press