Big Trouble (2002)

REVIEW
Rarely has a movie’s title so succinctly doubled as its epitaph. Allen and Russo topline an eclectic cast of misfits, idiots, hit men and hoodlums who are all embroiled in an intricate Rube Goldberg scenario involving — big laughs! — a nuclear bomb in Miami. A climax that involves the nuke slipping undetected through airport security surely won’t be earning any laughs (the film was delayed after the events of 9/11 and then hastily recut for release), but even without the inevitable echoes of real-life terrorism, Big Trouble is just plain unfunny. Ostensibly a madcap comedy on the order of It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, Sonnenfeld’s quirky sensibility provides a few chuckles and amusing running gags (particularly, scene-stealer Farina doing another variation on his contemptuous tourist schtick), but nearly every unlikable character feels like they belong in a different movie.