By Kit Bowen
Story
Welcome to the world of klutzy assistant veterinarian Corky Romano (
Kattan), who loves bad '80s music and is, by nature, a cheery fellow. However, he is also the son of an organized crime family who was kicked out long ago for not fitting in. Hmm, wonder why? When the family, including "Pops" Romano (Peter Falk) and his two dysfunctional sons, Peter (
Peter Berg) and Paulie (
Chris Penn), come under FBI investigation, they convince Corky to go undercover and join the FBI to disrupt the case. Corky becomes the darling of the bureau through no fault of his own, which irks its resident jerk (
Matthew Glave) who loathes Corky from the start. Seems Corky's bogus FBI résumé has been beefed up to enable him to gain access to his father's case file. It all ends predictably happy.
Acting
Saturday Night Live's
Kattan is at his best when going out on the comedy limb and as Corky, he climbs out with élan rather than dropping with a sickening thud. Corky is a fun character, infused with that manic energy
Kattan displays so well in his
SNL personas. He is very close to being able to carry this film. But alas, this isn't quite the role that could establish him as a leading man. Veteran
Falk, who has about one moment where he is really funny, and
Fred Ward, who plays the family's right-hand man, are the only other actors of
Kattan's caliber in the film and their characters seem to have been watered down to allow
Kattan to shine. The other performances, while serviceable, fall right into cardboard cutouts, especially those in the FBI. Clearly the casting was done with an eye on keeping the audience squarely focused on star
Kattan. in star focus.
Direction
Unfortunately, keeping
Kattan in the forefront is also one of the main problems with the film. It was nice watching all the comic's antics, laughing our butts off as he jerks his way down the aisle after inhaling a bunch of cocaine, but couldn't we have had a good story to go along with it? Here the story exists exclusively to provide setups for
Kattan's gags. Do we have to see a bunch of FBI agents make fools of themselves,
again? The film seems to follow the same route other
SNL stars have taken recently, focusing on the comedian rather than the film as a whole. At least
Corky is
not based on one of
Kattan's
SNL characters.
Will Ferrell seems to be one of the only
SNL members to have mostly steered clear of any star-making opportunities, seemingly satisfied with playing really funny supporting characters (not counting
A Night at the Roxbury). Maybe
Kattan would be better served following the lead of his good friend.