Plan B

After 5 minutes of watching Diana Keaton Playing this clumsy bookkeeper, i wished somebody shot her (in the movie that is..) The character she plays is very annoying and overdone, as are some other characters. There is little to laugh in this comedy. However, the second part of this movie gets better and the plot of the movie is less predictable than the jokes in it.

The cast looked promising, the storyline seemed to hold some laughs, and I was in the mood for some off-beat Diane Keaton gangster comedy.

Well, there are a few laughs to be had through-out the movie, but most of the time I just thought 'when is something interesting going to happen?' and 'when does Diane stop crying/shouting/babbling hysterically?'. I'm used to watching Diane Keaton playing this type of character, but in this case she really overdid it (may be the Director's fault, who knows). An outright terrible performance is made by Anthony DeSando playing the son/sidekick/whatever of Sorvino's character. The part in itself is exceptionally stupid (very cliché), but DeSando manages to make the character appear so stupid, that it isn't even funny (which I believe it was intended to be).

Bob Balaban (as Keaton's brother), Burt Young (as one of the persons she's asked to kill) and sometimes also Maury Chaykin makes the last half the movie somewhat tolerable, after 40 minutes of Keaton freaking out all the time.

The movie isn't exactly terrible, but it is the worst Diane Keaton-flick I've seen for some time.

I really loved this movie and I am not even a Diane Keaton fan! There are so many mafia movies like Goodfellas and Godfather that when a really funny mob comedy comes out like Plan B (or Analyze This) its a lot of fun to watch. This movie is a lot of fun and follows Fran, a bookkeeper played by Diane Keaton, as she finds herself involved with the mob in a lot of crazy situations. The story gets pretty wacky but is so much fun to watch. I was laughing out loud so many times and my husband was laughing too; that doesn't always happen. I would rate this movie about even with (or maybe just below?) Analyze This and definitely better than Analyze That and The Whole Nine (and Ten) Yards! The movie never gets boring and its fun to watch Bob Balaban, Burt Young (from the Rocky movies) and Paul Sorvino have so much fun working together. I give this one an A-

This irreverent comedy rolls along at a great pace, with Diane Keaton's one-liners and witty banter with the rest of the cast. Its a madcap comedy in the style of the 1930s style of comedy. Kind of like "Bringing Up Baby" meets "The Sopranos". In fact I could recognize a bunch of Sopranos actors playing supporting roles here and there. By the end of the movie the situations get so crazy I was really laughing! Anyone who is a fan of mafia related movies must go see this one. What makes this movie really funny is the interaction between all the talented actors. So, in the end, I rate this movie as 'Excellent' and would recommend to anyone.

PLAN B has the appearance of a quickly made, unedited, sloppy script for a movie with the attempt for an outing for the actors involved - an outing that should have been nixed from the start. It is just another Mafia-based 'comedy' that has nothing new and lowers the standard for those participating.

Joe Maloni (Paul Sorvino) is the crime boss more concerned about clothing and appearances than about his business of control. His personal assistant Mario (Anthony DeSando) is dumber than dirt and his ignorance is supposed to be funny. Maloni has whacked one of his debtors (who just happens to be married to bookish Fran - Diane Keaton) and Maloni takes Fran on as his assistant to work off her dead husband's debt by being Maloni's 'hit man'. Fran is afraid of her own shadow and is unable to carry out Maloni's assignments, electing instead to transport her 'whackees' to Florida to hide at her brother James' house until she can figure out what to do next. This alternative to killing the three candidates is called Plan B, Plan A being to kill them! The ending is wholly predictable just as is every line assigned in the script to the characters.

Diane Keaton has made a lot of fine films and is one of our most talented actresses and comediennes, but here she screams and rants and twitches her way through a ridiculous part that quickly becomes annoying to watch. Paul Sorvino is, well, the Paul Sorvino type cast from other mobster films. The supporting cast is likewise allowed to play to the balcony in the broadest slapstick, pratfall fashion imaginable. What is supposed to be a comedy ends up being just silly and overdone. Director Greg Yaitanes needs to go back to TV sitcoms: had this flimsy story been compressed into a half-hour gig it might have had a chance. Grady Harp