Witless Protection

17

Lionsgate (97 minutes)
and Charles Robert Carner
Larry The Cable Guy , Jenny McCarthy , Peter Stormare , Eric Roberts , Ivana Milicevic , and Joe Mantegna

Rating: PG-13 for crude and sex-related humor

Summary: During a routine day spent patrolling his small town, Larry witnesses a beautiful, high-class woman, Madeleine, being held against her will by four mysterious, black-suited men. Recognizing the opportunity to save the day, Larry "kidnaps" her, only to learn that Madeleine is actually a key witness in a high-stakes Chicago crime case and her captors are FBI agents assigned to protect her. Madeleine is furious. But Larry, who rightly suspects that the agents are crooked and Madeleine is in danger, forces her on a harebrained trip to Chicago to solve the case himself. Together, the hilariously mismatched duo must grapple with angry FBI agents, quack doctors, and Chicago high society in his funniest, most unpredictable adventure yet. (Lionsgate)

Matt Zoller Seitz
The New York Times:
(40) The slapstick and action set pieces are lame, and its performances range from competent to annoying.

Frank Scheck
The Hollywood Reporter:
(30) At least a fright-wigged Joe Mantegna, delivering an execrable cameo as a whacked-out doctor, has a good excuse for his presence; the writer-director is one of his former film students.

John Anderson
Variety:
(30) If you need a GPS unit to find your own backside, you'll be laughing uproariously at Witless Protection, a movie that's far more interesting politically than dramatically -- or, God knows, comically.

Luke Y. Thompson
LA Weekly:
(30) Still, it’s hard to despise the movie, especially when Peter Stormare shows up over-enunciating the most brilliantly awful English accent of all time.

Ty Burr
Boston Globe:
(25) It's mostly harmless dum-dum stuff, though.

Steven Hyden
The Onion (A.V. Club):
(0) Larry The Cable Guy is a cancerous boil on the ass of comedy, but it's still sort of shocking how little effort he puts into his movies.

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