Really lackluster outing.
Cathy Moriarty and Ben Cross are practicing a ruse to bilk a widow out of $300,000. Cross wonders to himself how he got into this mess — hiding in a closet to pretend to be a ghost. Great, a dreaded flashback.
Two weeks earlier, lawyer Cross gets a visit from Dean Wormer. Moriarty is there to pretend that she is a long lost cousin of Wormer’s. Cross tells Wormer that his dead uncle Albert Peters has left them $3 million.
Wormer says, “The only man I know by that name is my mother’s brother.” Isn’t that kind of the definition of dead uncle? Cross tells Wormer that his uncle was not killed by a train as his mother told him — he spent 20 years in jail for a bank robbery. $200,000 from the heist turned into $3M.
Moriarty invites Wormer to her hotel room that night. He shows up with a bottle and a rose. Moriarty explains that they should just buy Cross out for 10% They start making out — so not only does Wormer not know the meaning of “uncle”, he is a little fuzzy on the concept of “cousin” as well — and are photographed by Cross from the closet.
They go to to Cross’s office and Wormer figures out that he and Moriarty are in cahoots. They show him the photos which only make him laugh, and says his wife will never see them (a pretty good gag that will pay off later). Moriarty goes to shoot Wormer, but he pulls a Rosalind Shays (i.e. falls down the elevator shaft). Just to be safe, they send the elevator to the bottom floor to crush him.
At they police station, the decide to try to get the cash from Wormer’s wife who they see is blind. She wants to discuss it with her late husband via her spiritual adviser — she’s blind, not stupid. No wait, she’s blind and stupid.
Since Mrs. Wormer is blind, they tie up the “real” psychic and Moriarty imitates her. Also present is Mrs. Wormer’s chauffeur who apparently has never seen “her spiritual adviser” before.
The spirit of Wormer is summoned and a hooded figure shows up. He throws back the hood to reveal it is Wormer. The chauffeur says, “Mr. Wormer is looking a bit peaked.” Does he not understand why they are at the psychic? They gave this guy a license?
Wormer reveals Cross’s head in a brief case, then rips out Moriarty’s heart like Mola Ram in Temple of Doom. He tells Moriarty, “You ain’t got no heart.”
I literally fell asleep about 5 times over the course of three days trying to finish this one. Not sure whether it is the actors or the direction or both, but Moriarty and Cross are two of the dullest actors I have ever seen.
Moriarty is a classic case of peaking early. She was nominated for Best Supporting Actress in her first role, then disappeared for six years. Her IMDb bio cites a serious car accident, bad luck, and man trouble. Maybe, but part of the problem had to be an absolute lack of screen presence.
Post-Post:
- Title Analysis: A little too on-the-nose.
- Written by Harry Anderson.
- Ben Cross was just in The Concrete Mixer. Just as lackluster as Moriarty, he finally got the role he was perfectly suited to play in 2009 — Spock’s emotionless Vulcan father Sarek.