Tough To Suspend Disbelief

Rating: 5/10 (24 July 2005)

I admit that Wilson and Vaughn ham & egg pretty well together, and the plot breezes along quickly. However, it cannot move fast enough to paper over the totally implausible plot failures which made watching the film a bit difficult.
These two scammers would never have been invited to the Secretary's shore compound. Sorry - claiming to be related to Aunt Nellie and Uncle Ed, or whatever, would never, ever get them to the villa or on the yachts. Once identified, the Secretary - and his daughters - would never have allowed them to marry these two grifters. I don't care how egalitarian we pretend to be - it would never occur. Everything about them was transparently false.
The nymphomanical daughter? Oh, she's a keeper! Not!!! And what about the age difference? What on earth would she see in Vaughn? Sack, or whatever Claire's boyfriend was called? A more reptilian brute you'd be hard pressed to find. A Lodge? They've been going out for 3 and 1/2 years? Never. He crumbled so quickly into stereotype that he would have been discovered for the cad he was years before.
While I wanted to immerse myself in the film, the total implausibility of the leaps of faith required to watch in earnest simply overwhelmed me. While we all know that the families of the powerful often have all sorts of hidden misfits and oddballs, this one takes the cake, down to the RISD student.
And, frankly, I was waiting for Mr. Walken to go psycho, pull out a pistol, and dispatch any number of characters.