Robert Benton and Harold Ramis, put on dunce caps and go stand in the corner.

But these moments are few and far between, the majority of the picture nothing more than a nice idea tied to bits and pieces I've seen far too many times before in far better movies.

... the film's difficult genre straddling never quite congeals.

Harold Ramis has gone from high-concept to no-concept. He confuses bared breasts, broken fingers and blown-out brains for edgy existential comedy in a conventional film-noir story that snappy quips from Oliver Platt and Billy Bob Thornton can’t save.