Nothing To Lose

Picture director Steve Oedekerk in a Hollywood laboratory. First, he stirs jokes into a vat of sulfur oxide. Second, he runs two pretty women through the depersonalityizer. Third, he adds an eyedrop from the ever resuable beaker of clichés. He pours the whole stinky concoction into a pot of sugary syrup, and it's now ready for the final ingredient -- a dose of Jim Carrey. But what's this? Carrey's been assigned to another film! Oedekerk rushes around the lab, furiously searching for a comic. Quickly he grabs two: Martin Lawrence and a misfiled Tim Robbins. He drops them in, lights up the Bunsen burner and, voilà!, he's got Nothing To Lose.

For the viewer, on the other hand, it's seven bucks down the drain watching this moronic formula comedy about a man (Robbins) who's so upset to find his wife (Kelly Preston) has cheated on him that he decides to put up a fight against a mugger (Lawrence). Could it be that this upstanding white man is actually crazier than this petty-criminal black guy? Or perhaps they're both just two tortured souls who together form the unlikeliest of bonds as they face adversity, meet the Noxema Girl, and bore the hell out of everyone in what can only be called the process. Opens Friday at the Holiday, Lincoln Mall, Tri-Boro, and Warwick Mall cinemas.

-- Mark Bazer