Pun Salad

A Netflix DVD that was in my queue for awhile, bumped up to the top simply because of its longevity. It's OK. But given the Elmore Leonard source material, sort of disappointing.

IMDB plot summary: "Two common criminals get more than they bargained for after kidnapping the wife of a corrupt real-estate developer who shows no interest in paying the $1 million dollar ransom for her safe return." From that, I was expecting some zany hijinks, following in the noble comic tradition of O. Henry's "The Ransom of Red Chief".

But not so much. Jennifer Aniston plays Mickey, the kidnap victim. Tim Robbins is the hubby, who in addition to his real estate fraud, is also cheating on Mickey with Melanie (Isla Fisher). And he sees the kidnapping as a way to avoid a messy divorce.

Things get complicated. There are a lot of supporting characters, contributing their own confusion to the mix. Will Forte plays a hapless Lothario who, trying to weasel his way into Mickey's pants, happens upon the kidnapping. And the crooks' hapless assistant turns out to be a pervy rapist—will Mickey manage to avoid this?

Trivia: It's been a long time since I saw Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown, but it turns out that this movie and that one share a number of characters from the Elmore Leonard universe. This movie is based on Leonard's The Switch, while Jackie Brown was based on the book Rum Punch.