Jack Corcoran is an inspiration speaker who is trying to get his career moving to get the bigger gigs after having a best selling book. He bases his theory on his ability to get over his father's death just before his birth. He is surprised to find his father has just died and has actually left him an inheritance. He travels out to collect to find that his father was a clown and his inheritance is substantial -in fact she's an elephant. Now he has less than a week to get across country to deliver the elephant to one of several interested parties.
Around about this period Bill Murray films kinda sunk to a bit of a low in terms of money making and quality. One thing has kept him a star however and that's himself even an average film can be made enjoyable by him, and that's what happens here. The plot is predictable who will he give the elephant to, the evil trainer or the jungle bunny? Will he make it in time? The answers are easy, but no matter. The message about loving animals etc are a little sentimental and don't sit well with the idea that we are actually watching an animal that belongs to a movie organisation such as the one being shown here as evil!
The comedy is also predictable we know the elephant will knock things down and lift things up etc, but it's not overdone and is amusing to a point. It may not be rocket science but it will please kids for sure. For adults the physical nature of this comedy is tempered by a world weary Murray who really does make the film worth watching. He is a funny guy and although he is on auto-pilot here, he is still very good.
The film rests solely on his shoulders and he just about carries it off. The rest of the cast may well be made of faces but they are all in minor roles. People like Piven, Garofalo, Fiorentino, Jerry Alder, Presnell etc are all round the edges making it look tidy but really do little. McConaughey has a bigger, minor role but he isn't very good. His character is funny but he doesn't quite carry it off and I wonder if he is embarrassed by it now.
Overall this sort of thing usually stinks the place up, and this one doesn't. It's nothing special but is amusing enough to pass the time. This is mainly due to Murray doing his usual world-weary cynical act we've seen it before but that doesn't mean it's not still funny.
