The Films of Jonathan Lynn: The Whole Nine Yards

The Whole Nine Yards
Released in 2000 by Warner Bros.
Written by Michael Kapner

A Dentist named Oz(Matthew Perry), gets a new neighbor who he instantly recognizes as “Jimmy the Tulip” (Bruce Willis) an infamous mob hitman. Oz gets caught up in a vendetta between Jimmy and his former boss, and a scenario where everybody wants to kill everybody else.

“Yards” is an off-target movie, it’s about Oz when it should be about Jimmy, who is an amazing character, seeded by some great cast design.

In “Story” Robert McKee argues that the dimensionality of a character is expressed in the surrounding cast. With Sophie, Jimmy is a cold killer, but with Jill, the hopeful hitperson in-training, he’s a supportive lover. When Jimmy is alone with Oz, he’s at ease, and a friendly guy. In the presence of fellow hitman Frankie, he’s always holding a weapon. Though a simple dichotomy of “hitman with a heart” may feel a little stale, it’s more compelling than “Dentist with no-particularly-contradictory-characteristics-at-all”.

I’m not so sure Jimmy isn’t the main character, as the climax of the film revolves around Jimmy’s decision: whether or not to kill Oz. (SPOLIER: he doesn’t). There’s no real tension. Who’d believe that Bruce Willis would whack Matthew Perry? If the audience is going buy the final dilemma, need to see the situation’s alternative beforehand. If we don’t see Jimmy kill a guy like Oz, we don’t know the consequences of his final decision. There’s a lot of exposition about Jimmy, but little action. Would the climax of “Star Wars” be so tense if we didn’t SEE what happened to planet Aldreaan first?

That said, Michael Kapner’s screenplay is a joy. Most comedy endings are predictable: the guy gets the girl, the innocent kids on death row are acquitted, the objective is obtained and they live happily ever after. But “Yards” employs a clever series of Hitchcockian plot twists and revelations, keeping the audience guessing at the final resolution, and interested in the story (even if the lead characters aren’t interesting) .

“The Whole Nine Yards” is about an everyman thrown in with some deeply weird people. And as such, a successful connection with the audience depends on how they relate to the everyman in question. With Oz, I just… don’t. Maybe it’s because the character is written with the same depth as the wacky hitmen he’s surrounded by , or maybe I just don’t find Matthew Perry all that appealing, lacking in that Cary Grant “It” factor. Perhaps if it was Jeff Daniels taking pratfalls and proving his virtue under fire, I’d have a different reaction. But I’m just not invested in Oz’s progress in all of this mess.

To date, “The Whole Nine Yards” is arguably Jonathan Lynn’s most successful directorial effort, with the highest opening weekend gross of any other of his films. (and this is the guy who still managed to get work after ‘Greedy’). And although I don’t particularly care for it, I certainly appreciate it more than “The Fighting Temptations”.

You're only half the story

tvtropes is , as most know, a combination wiki and message board devoted to cataloging and listing every bit, event and cliché that appears in fiction in general. Browsing tv tropes reveals two very valuable things.

1. There are no new ideas.
The exhaustive lists for movies like Princess Bride and Pirates of the Caribbean, show just how many conventions so many movies share (Even Casablanca and The 400 Blows) . There doesn't seem to be any film or work of note that doesn't have an enormous cross-referenced list of "tropes".

2. The author only writes half the story.

The rest of what makes a successful story live is the audience.
The"Wild Mass Guessing" and "Fridge Brilliance", categories of the site prove how freaking insane fans are, like people who think Sofia from Golden Girls was a figment of Rose's Imagination or that any character who changes actors is a Doctor Who Timelord. With shows and franchises with particularily devoted fanbases like the Recent My Little Pony Series (even just for one character) and the Christopher Nolan Batman movies,the debates just get strange.

But with all this dissection going on over lines or pieces of business that were one-off jokes, or simply trying to re-write plot holes as ultra-subtle brilliance, tvtropes proves that the audience is an active participant, not merely the recipient, of the ritual we call storytelling. 'Cause there's no way in hell Batman's a Timelord.

"The more beautifully you shape your work around one clear idea, the more meanings audiences will discover in your film as they take your idea and follow its implications into every aspect of their lives."
-Robert McKee

The Films of Jonathan Lynn: Sgt. Bilko

Released 1996 by Universal Pictures, written by Andy Breckman, based off of the Phil Silvers show, created by Nat Hiken.

Sergeant Ernest Bilko is a scheamer who repeatedly leaves his long-running fiance at the alter and runs illegal gambling operations behind his superiors' backs. When his old C.O., Major Thorn(Phil Hartman, perhaps the only good thing to come out of Greedy), arrives to audit progress on development of a "hover tank" (and settle a personal score with the Seargent), Bilko has to find a way to save his own skin and that of his base, Fort Baxter.

The Cast is fantastic! It's billed as a Steve Martin vehicle, but Bilko's really an ensemble piece. Glenne Headly, Daryl Mitchell and Dan freak'n Ackroyd round out the primary cast. Steve Martin's a wonderful physical comedian, but It seems the burden of whoever gets stuck on screen with him while he's doing schtick to bring in truthful reactions to the scene and make it believable! Which everyone (particularily Headly and Mitchell) do in spades.
Even the bit players are brilliant! Nearly everyone of the men in the motorpool get a scene-stealing moment, from Spc. Paparelli in drag (Max Casella) to Major Ebersole (Austin Pendelton...again) fantastically losing a game of poker the entire roster is amazing.

If you wanted to find a fault with the film, the characters are pretty thinly drawn. Bilko, and everybody else are basically Looney Tunes. Every character's pretty much a one-trait gag: the greedy one, the fat one, the mean one, the dumb one etc.
Major Thorn (the mean one) wants revenge on Bilko for sending him to Greenland. He breaks into Bilko's records and finds explicit evidence of every illegal gambling ring and dog race Bilko ever organized. That would be enough for a court martial, but Thorn takes it one step further and frames Ernie for diverting funds, claiming Fort Baxter's "Hover Tank" is a fraud. This claim gives Bilko the solution in the third act, when he and the motorpool successfully fly the tank and save the day.
A reasonable person in this situation would find the real evidence, turn it in, get Bilko booted away, simple. Only a complete caricature of obsession like Thorn would shoot himself in the foot like that, defying all common sense. I could whine about how this makes him a weaker antagonist by lowering his competence and threat level, but I won't.

Having excellent actors play a gang of incredibly broad characters serves a definite purpose: the story's over-the-top, but excellently constructed.

More specifically, it has a point. In "Story" Robert McKee makes mention of "the controlling statement", a brief dictum that sums up what happens and why. As he puts it

" The more beautifully you shape your work around one clear idea, the more meanings audiences will discover in your film as they take your idea and follow it's implications into every aspect of their lives".

Brian McDonald, author of "Invisible Ink", calls this the armature, like the wire skeleton of a clay sculpture, and also make mention, that in motion pictures, this moral (if you will) is often expressed offhand in a line of dialog.

In one of the very first scenes, Sgt. Barbella tells newcomer Laredo-I mean, Holbrook:
"That's the golden rule around here, you don't say nothing unless you're prepared to back it up."

Throughout the film, everything revolves around proving claims. Ernie Bilko tells Rita he loves her, but he has to prove it by being there for her, and (eventually) marrying her.
The biggest laughs come when character's have to justify their lies. Like why Bilko has a horse on a crane, and why Sgt. Henshaw (John Marshall Jones) has a closet full of dresses in a room he claimed was his (*gasp*SPOILER: it isn't).

In the finale, Bilko and his men "prove" the hover-tank works by faking the field demonstration. Thorn knows this is impossible since he personally sabotaged the tank's firing controls before, and accuses Bilko of trickeryh. When the visiting General asks him how he knows the tank can't work, Thorn (in True Daffy Duck fashion) indites himself out of frustration.

Bilko's a solid piece of work, thought out, well constructed, marvelously cast, and as always with Jonathan Lynn's movies, with Tony Lombardo's crisp editing keeping the pace brisk and enjoyable. Some places do drag, like the super-fake CGI on the Hover-Tank (hey, it was 1996!) but the film's got it where it counts.

In ticket sales, Bilko did twice the overall revenue of Greedy, and certainly has had a better track record critically, in television rotation and home video/media sales. A grand improvement, I'd say.

Robert McKee and Hellboy

Today, I'm going to use terms from Robert McKee's book on Screewriting. In Story, McKee claims a fulfilling story should end in an absolute, irreversible change in the world of the story, whether that be a world-changing event or a permanent transformation of character.

He also writes at great length about "the Gap" between a character;s expectations and what happens. The guy or gal does something which promotes a different or stronger reaction than he or she expected.

These principles apply pretty good to the Mike Mignola short story here.

Seriously, this thing is two pages long. Count them if you don't believe me. Translated to cinematic time this story would run as long as a TV ad.

The saga begins when Hellboy learns it's time for breakfast and he wants noodles, I guess this is what them writer types call an "inciting incident". General Ricker has a differing agenda and insists on Pancakes. Which is an issue they argue over. Hey! Conflict! Writing teachers love talking about Conflict. Conflict that progresses! Look how both General Ricker and Hellboy change their tactics to get what they want!

Enter "The Gap" Hellboy likes pancakes! Hellboy took an action, eating pancakes, expecting to hate them, and thus cast them aside to get his initial objective: noodles. But that he likes pancakes takes the story in a different direction.

And we have our "permanent change" or "indelible reversal" or whatever way you want to say "story's done, no take-backs" Hellboy goes from hating to loving pancakes and will eat them whenever General Ricker serves them, irrevocable change on a interpersonal level. The demons of Hell lament that the beast of the apocalypse is lost to the world of men: change on an environmental level. It's implied that General Ricker has forever bought the kid's loyalty to humanity. This is the point where Hellboy's deepest convictions cement for the majority of his life: change on an internal level.

There's other cool writer-ly stuff going on here like the comedic dramatic irony the reader is treated to at the revelation or reveal of the city of Pandemonium which also states the high stakes at risk over whether or not this kid eats his pancakes.