Out on a Limb

Directed by Francis Veber, Out on a Limb follows Matthew Broderick’s Bill Campbell as he returns to his small home town and subsequently finds himself embroiled in several mishaps and outrageous situations. Filmmaker Veber, working from Daniel Goldin and Joshua Goldin’s screenplay, delivers a briskly-paced and agreeably silly comedy that’s been suffused with a number of laugh-out-loud funny jokes and set-pieces, including a series of wacky misunderstandings and even a Weekend at Bernie‘s-like adventure for a corpse, and it’s clear, too, that the movie benefits from the larger-than-life, thoroughly committed efforts of the various performers – with Broderick’s solid leading-man turn matched by such eclectic periphery players as Jeffrey Jones and John C. Reilly. (Jones, in particular, offers up an impressively broad performance as a pair of less-than-scrupulous twins.) And although the whole thing often feels just a little too slight for its own good (ie the movie is, when everything is said and done, pretty forgettable), Out on a Limb‘s pervasively affable atmosphere, coupled with an appropriately brief running time, cements its place as an entertaining endeavor that never comes close to wearing out its welcome.

*** out of ****