Pun Salad

I may have noir-overdosed, because this trifling Adam Sandler/Jennifer Aniston comedy from last year started to look real good to me. Let's see a flick where a lot of folks (mostly deserving) get bumped off and everyone avoids treating it as if it were a big deal, and maybe get a few chuckles along the way.

Reader, I admit I laughed a lot more than I probably should have.

Mr. Sandler and Ms. Aniston play Nick and Audrey Spitz, a couple married for 15 years. Once you get over the credibility hurdle (she couldn't do better?), the plot develops: he's a cop stuck in the lower ranks, she's a hairdresser, and she desperately wants him to take her on a long-promised European trip. He gives in, although they can't really afford it.

But on the flight over, she "accidentally" wanders into the first-class section of the plane and meets its only inhabitant, Charles Cavendish. Who's charming, filthy rich, and intrigued enough with Audrey to invite them onto his (even richer) uncle's yacht for some Mediterranean cruising. The rich uncle has invited his relations and hangers-on for an announcement involving their inheritance.

Terence Stamp plays the uncle. Great to see him again.

But you know how these things go. He soon winds up dead, in one of those Agatha Christie-style scenarios. Lots of suspects, most of them with shady pasts or possible motives. Nick and Audrey find themselves playing detective. Which annoys the actual detective on the case no end; he'd rather view them as prime suspects.