Martin Bregman, Michael Scott Bregman and Dan Jinks
Screenplay:
Steve Oedekerk
Original Score :
Robert Folk
Cast :
Nick Beam: Tim Robbins (Jacob's Ladder, Bull Durham, The Shawshank Redemption)
T. Paul: Martin Lawrence (Bad Boys, Boomerang, A Thin Line Between Love And Hate)
Davis "Rig" Lanlow: John C. McGinley (Platoon, On Deadly Ground, Seven, Highlander II)
Charlie Dunt: Giancarlo Esposito (Fresh, The Usual Suspects)
Ann Beam: Kelly Preston (Jerry Maguire, Only You, Twins)
Philip Barrow: Michael McKean (Dream On (TV), Airheads, Short Circuit 2, This Is Spinal Tap)
Security Guard Baxter: Steve Oedekerk Danielle: Rebecca Gayheart (Scream 2, Beverly Hills 90210 (TV))
Nothing To Lose stars Tim Robbins as Nick Beam, the man who has it
all. He's a successful advertising executive with an excellent salary, a
babelicious wife (Kelly Preston), a boss who appreciates his ideas, and
no chance of anything going wrong until...
He's told by his boss that he'll have to cover tonight in a meeting over dinner
with a client, while his boss goes on a hot date. At first he's in despair as
he's going to have to cancel his planned evening with his wife, but shortly
after finds the client has cancelled, so he goes home early...to find his
wife in bed with his boss.
Opting not to make a scene, he just leaves without letting them know he found
out, and when driving away from the house his car is hijacked by a young man
named T. Paul (Martin Lawrence). Having none of it, as his day can't
get any worse as he has nothing to lose, he zooms off turning the tables on
his kidnapper by driving him miles out of the city.
Eventually the two characters bond as they realise they each have their own
problems which they can help each other with, and with T. Paul being an expert
safecracker, Nick decides to use him to help get his own back on his boss, but
they hadn't reckoned on being followed by a couple of big-time criminals,
Davis "Rig" Lanlow and Charlie Dunt.
I'm quite a fan of Tim Robbins' films, and this proves that he has a knack
for comedy, as much as he does for serious drama when it comes to films like
Jacob's Ladder and The Shawshank Redemption. He also teams up
well with co-star Martin Lawrence, who is mostly well-known in the UK for his
buddy-buddy pic, Bad Boys when he co-starred with Will Smith
(Independence Day, Men In Black).
The two criminals following Nick and T. Paul aim to be the hard men, but
serve to prove that crime doesn't always pay as while the two pairs get one
over each other from time to time, the characters played by John C. McGinley
and Giancarlo Esposito prove to be just as inept, the former being one
of my favourite actors, but who always seems to be on the receiving end of
things.
The rest of the cast is skimpily filled by bit-part characters which don't
leave a major impression on the mind. Kelly Preston, wife of John
Travolta, plays the average-wife role; the excellent Michael McKean,
always good in comedy roles, plays Nick's boss, but alas the role doesn't have
much to it. One-time-character from Beverly Hills 90210, Rebecca
Gayheart who played the new wife of Luke Perry's character Dylan, and
features in the forthcoming Scream 2, has a very nothing-role as a mild
romantic diversion for Nick.
Finally, the director himself, Steve Oedekerk, appears in two roles
in the film, one as a Londoner who gives the two bad guys a lift, and later
as a security guard who doesn't quite have his mind on the job...
Overall, this is definitely one comedy worth recommending, partly because the
comic timing between the two leads works very well, and also because it's
not being promoted as much as it deserves which is a shame as while it's not
comedy-of-the-year material and has an obvious ending, it does have plenty of
laugh-out-loud classic moments, one in particular featuring a deadly
tarantula.
One last note - if you're one of those people who leaves the cinema as soon
as the end credits begin, DON'T, as afterwards there's the return of the
"Hillbilly Motherfucker" ...
As of April 2009, Blu-rays and DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TH-37PX80B
37" Plasma TV with a Sony BDP-1500 Blu-ray player and played through a Yamaha DSP-AX820 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Jan 2011: Intel Quad Core Dell XPS 8100, i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80Ghz, 8Gb RAM, nVidia GeForce GTS 240, Windows 7
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
