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Viewed at Manchester Showcase Cinemas.
Telephone 0161 220 8765 for programme information
- Cert: 15
- Running time: 97 minutes
- Year: 1997
- Released: 21st November 1997
- Widescreen Ratio : 1.85:1
- Rating: 7/10
Director:
- Steve Oedekerk
(Ace Ventura 2: When Nature Calls)
Producers:
- 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))
N othing 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” …
Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 1997.
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.