BEFORE: Well, I changed my plans again, from "The Bucket List" to this film, and accidentally found another film directed by Bob Rafelson, how about that? Nicholson must be this guy's muse or something...
THE PLOT: A sleazy but affable guard dog trainer is blackmailed to steal a manuscript for a tell-all book from one of his clients.
AFTER: Yeah, same director, same problems. The plot seems just as contrived as last night's, Nicholson plays a married man who sleeps around (again...), the only difference here being the object in question, the thing that everyone is after, which this time is a tell-all book manuscript about a woman's time spent as a mobster's girlfriend.
More contrived coincidences here, and the plot points that weren't predictable were so random as to be completely unbelievable. What are the chances that the main characters would be looking at a TV news broadcast which gives them the exact location of the place they'll find the missing woman? Bloody unlikely...
Also starring Ellen Barkin (last seen in "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai"), Beverly D'Angelo (last seen in "Christmas Vacation"), Michael McKean (last seen in "1941"), Harry Dean Stanton (last seen in "A Civil Action"), Saul Rubinek (last seen in "Wall Street"), Veronica Cartwright (last seen in "The Right Stuff"), David Clennon (also last seen in "The Right Stuff").
RATING: 3 out of 10 glasses of iced tea
JACK-O-METER: 3 out of 10. Same. This character is definitely in Nicholson's wheelhouse - the charmer, the adulterer, the man looking for the sacred object - but he chooses to not do any heavy lifting with it.
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