He's flogging heavy treads at discount prices to truck companies and wearing cheap clothes. The idea is full of promise, particularly when Jack the banker never changes into Jack the saleman. He has to act the role to Kate, his boring friends, his children, until he begins to like it, which is where the sentiment comes in. Leoni is too perfect and almost too beautiful. Cage plays baffled to the point of hysteria, stumbling through one embarrassing moment to another, like a bison in a boudoir.
Every scene is too long.
Added together, the movie could lose 40 minutes and gain considerably. When salesman Jack tries to get back into his old firm, it is taking the conceit beyond the realm of incredulity, assuming, of course, that a parallel existence sits comfortably in your imagination. It is interesting to think of Cage as a modern day James Stewart and Leoni as the new June Allyson. If they remake The Glenn Miller Story, let's hope the script is sharper than this. Copyright 1997-2001 insideout.co.uk.