Ben Kingsley plays a drunk hit man. Worst of all his drunkenness accounts for a hit going awry - he sleeps through it, stoned - so he's shipped off to San Francisco to get dry. There he comes under the tutelage of Bill Pullman who puts him into AA and a job as an undertaker's assistant ("right up your alley"). Initially refusing to be directed he succumbs when he's made an offer he can't refuse. Do it or you know what! Not that Pullman can pull that off. He's a frumpy mess of a guy, connected to the mob, and with as much testosterone as a gelding.
Tea Leoni shows up while he's doing the make up on a corpse, her much despised step father, with some bowling shoes to deck him up in. They turn out to be too small (she'd stolen them from a bowling alley), and Kingsley offers to "break some toes" to make them fit. A relationship has sown it's first seeds. Kingsley's straight on demeanor interests Leoni, who's burnt out on men, wary and cold. What she has going for her though is humor laced with acid. Reluctantly she allows Kingsley to maneuver her into seeing him, and she edges into the relationship.
Soon enough she finds out she's dating not only a drunk (reforming at times) but a hit man. This she discovers in one of the movies best scenes (Leoni's slow double takes are priceless!) when Kingsley explains to an enthralled AA meeting what he does for a living, and how alcohol is stopping him from doing it. By this time we are so smitten by the movie that we root for him to be dry long enough so he can get back to his job!
This is a wonderful vehicle for Tea Leoni's dry, dead pan, ironic delivery. As she produced it I have little doubt she either had a hand in the script or had shopped around for one to suit her style. I was hesitant to see this simply because I had confused her recent characters (Jurassic park 3, Spanglish) as being her: shrill, neurotic, psychologically toxic. She's not playing a nice character here either, but she's dropped the twitchy mannerisms, and gone back to the work she did on TV that brought her to fame. Quirky, yes, but drop dead funny!Keen, sharp and scintillating with her tongue.
Kingsley is good, but dozens of actors could have pulled this off as well. Pullman is great, his preppy looks smooshed behind coke bottle glasses, and large old suits that make him look weak and decadent. But the movie belongs to Leoni!
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