Takes itself way too seriously

Such a frustrating disappointment

Don't listen to the negative reviews

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Vic is on a plane from Las Vegas to Los Angeles. Aware that someone is waiting at the Los Angeles airport who will find that she has a lot of money and likely arrest her, she plants the money on Raj, a resident of India who is visiting his nephew Andy, a taxi driver.De Salvo and his partner Quinn are supposed to pick up the money. One problem: Andy lives in Apartment 6, and Thomas Thomas is unfortunate enough to live in Apartment 9 of the same building. The number on his door is loose.Andy's dog Socrates, who likes to steal, finds the bag with the money and hides it. When everyone realizes what is going on, naive and moral Raj believes they should do the right thing, but Andy and his friends disagree.Detective Cody, who is investigating Vic's case, has been on the force for many years, but budget cuts may mean he gets laid off. Meanwhile, Iva Doll is putting the pressure on Vic, who in turn demands results from De Salvo and Quinn.Joe Mantegna was outstanding. This is the type of role he does best. Bad, but still likable and somewhat ignorant. And he was quite good when he was supposedly drunk (not really drunk, but I won't say just what happened) . Mercedes Ruehl was quite good, overly confident and smug at times, and very angry at other times. She reminded me of Glenn Close in '101 Dalmatians'. Like Mantegna, she also did a great drunk--but she wasn't drunk either. Chaim Girafi was subdued but delivered quality. Whoopi Goldberg had a brief but effective performance as a dogcatcher who took in strays. And Ricky Dean Logan was quite funny as an incompetent employee at the morgue.Although this film was quite funny, it had a dark side and an amazing distinction I can't reveal.This was a lot of fun if you don't mind it being somewhat demented.

This movie started out so good too. Then all of a sudden everyone bares fangs and starts double-crossing and killing each other at the end! Yes, to be a good, clever ironic movie, you need to have some double-crossing. But the writer must've gotten lazy, and switched off the "good" and "clever" part, and just had everyone become a monster.Couldn't they have shown all of those apartment complex neighbors outwitting the bad guys and getting to keep the money in the end? Possibly even doing something to get revenge for the accidental murders of their two apartment mates at the beginning? Why does the dog-catcher get all of the money? She only showed up in the middle very briefly. Yes, sorry, I gave away the ending ... don't worry about it, you're not likely going to watch it all of the way till the end of this movie anyway.

It had such promise. Don't know what I was expecting, but this wasn't it. Would like to say it was clever, fun and original. And for a while--just a little while--it was fun. I laughed at some of the lines. No, really, I did. There were some great takes on myths about America and Americans. And then...it all went to hell in the biggest handbasket I've ever seen. For three quarters of the movie everything is warm and fuzzy. And then, I guess they lost the last part of the script and said "Oh, well. Let's just kill everyone."Wouldn't you have liked to see Peter Coyote get his job back? Or better yet, frame one of his superiors, make it up with Mercedes Ruehl, maybe off the Louise Fletcher character (what a waste of a great actress) and go off to Barbados? Or what if each person had somehow each gotten their own dream? Or if Uncle Raj had gotten the cash to return to his home in India? I was even expecting to see Uncle Raj become involved with Victoria for a bit. Wouldn't that have been a cool pairing? Wouldn't it have been funny to either a) see her mellow out or b) him become avaricious and street smart? Wouldn't it have been a riot if they had stretched each new obstacle out a bit more? It could have been so funny....But Nooooooooooooooooo! They turned it into a stereotypes on parade with Whoopi doing her cool earth mother routine yet AGAIN (since Celie, has she actually played any other character besides herself?) becoming the hero because she's a cool earth mother. Boring!

This movie will hurt your soul. The writer of this movie should be charged with obscene crimes against humanity. The star of this movie, the dog, presumably committed doggie suicide after being involved in such a sad and depressing project.What is with Hollywood? In their world you can only succeed if you love animals while hating humans. Or if you're an exceptionally unattractive and unfunny minority comedienne. If you're not Whoopie-fied, you will always betray your friends and relatives, while offing other people like so many gnats.I would venture that producers/writers/director/actors probably don't own mutts.I hate movies like this. Was it written by a rabid pro-death college student? Who has such a pessimistic view of life? Who financed this madness? I don't care who was in this evacuated bowel of a movie, it stank like 3 day old shrimp peels in a half full Alpo can in the sun out on the deck.Pure pain. Pure soul destroying Hollywood pain.