starring : bruce willis , matthew perry , rosanna arquette , michael clarke duncan , natasha henstridge , amanda peet , kevin pollak director : jonathan lynn written by : mitchell kapner as creator of the british tv series " yes , minister " and the writer/director of movie comedies like clue , nuns on the run , and my cousin vinny , jonathan lynn isn't lacking in the offbeat humor department . with the whole nine yards , he shows a considerably darker side to his sense of what's funny ; this time there are contract killers , murder plots and double-crosses to go with the pratfalls and silly accents that characterized earlier lynn films . picture an elmore leonard novel filtered through a brit-com sensibility , and you get the idea . while the film begins unpromisingly , it kicks into an entirely more satisfying gear in its second half , giving matthew perry the distinction of having the best friends cast member movie thus far . perry stars as nick " oz " oseransky , a dentist who's distinctly unhappy with his mooching french-canadian wife ( played with a silly accent by arquette ) and unfulfilled life . after recognizing his new next-door neighbor jimmy jones ( willis ) as notorious hit man jimmy " the tulip " tudeski , oz is forced by his wife to go to chicago in hopes of collecting a reward for revealing tudeski's whereabouts to yanni gogolack ( pollak ) , the crime boss tudeski sold out for a reduced sentence . naturally , assorted hijinks ensue , including but not limited to oz's getting worked over by gogolack's enforcer frankie figs ( the green mile's duncan ) , sleeping with tudeski's wife ( henstridge ) , and finding out about a particularly large sum of money that everyone wants to " off " everyone else for . oz learns that tudeski doesn't believe in divorce ( it's a sin ) , but would happily kill his wife to get at the money . as he becomes a pawn in the schemes of everyone around him , oz has to figure out a way to keep the people he cares about from getting whacked-- especially himself . at first , laughs don't come easily . perry seems unsure whether to go with his sarcastic wiseacre character on friends or the bumbling , in-over-his-head naïf lynn seems to want . worse , he looks embarrassed at having to perform the too-numerous pratfalls that mar the entire movie . pollak , doing an even more silly accent than arquette's , tries to make his pronunciation of " vermin " this year's version of joe pesci's " yoots " in vinny but fails horribly . by the second half , though , after a few more characters have been established ( particularly jill , oz's dental secretary and contract killer wannabe , played with fervid enthusiasm by peet ) , the humor starts to click . willis' friendship with duncan is so patently obvious that it shines right through their line readings , and perry seems to relax into a much better mix of peevish tightass and nice-guy hero . even the sight gags are funnier . in the end , everything works out in a twisted yet moralistic way that jimmy the tulip would appreciate . 
