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Peter Gallagher and Jon Tenney are a pair of cousins with some simmering resentments left from childhood, so when Gallagher moves back to Chicago and in with Tenney to sort his life out, he leaves himself open for a variety of dirty tricks. Tenney shares his house with other roommates where the watchwords are "watch it!"--meaning that everyone is fair game for increasingly cruel practical jokes. Some funny material gives Tom Sizemore and John C. McGinley, a couple of actors who don't usually get this kind of role, the chance to be both funny and sympathetic. Suzy Amis is also good as the girl who inspires increased rivalry between the cousins. Witty and enjoyable, if inconsequential.
--Marshall Fine
The title of Tom Flynn's movie sounds like a publicity come-on; in fact it refers to a game played by the central characters who met at college and still share a house in Chicago. As played by Jon Tenney, John C. McGinley, and Tom Sizemore, they begin as frivolous, womanizing jocks, and "Watch It"-in which they plague each other with complex practical jokes-is the high point of their existence. They may be fun-loving, but Flynn's movie is anything but; it looks drab and shoddy, and tends to flatten what it should be hyping up. Even the gags, rather endearing at first, turn serious when soulful and sensitive John (Peter Gallagher) joins the household and transforms the mood; from then on, the guys start to fall in love and-you guessed it-learn about themselves. "Watch It" promises high spirits but never delivers them; by the end, it feels lazy and slumped. If anything keeps it alive, it's a couple of performances by women, a combative Cynthia Stevenson and a daffy Lili Taylor. -Anthony Lane
Copyright © 2006
The New Yorker
DVD ~ Matthew Perry
