Homegrown

It's Weekend at Bernie's without the body (also funnier, more intelligently scripted and better acted) as three hapless underlings decide to harvest and market their slain boss's marijuana crop. This misfit comedy is a real sleeper. Sling Blade's Billy Bob Thornton is the grizzled plantation overseer in way over his head. Hank Azaria (The Birdcage, The Simpsons) gives his best, and least cartoonish, performance to date as the hippie horticulturist. A parade of actors, perhaps angling for some indie-credibility, cameo, including John Lithgow, Jamie Lee Curtis as an Earth Mother organizer-type, Judge Reinhold as a corrupt sheriff, and an hysterical Ted Danson as an ingratiating mobster whose mood markedly turns when he learns Thornton will be late with his shipment. Perhaps not a total high, but a refreshingly offbeat film that gives a good buzz. Recommended. (K. Lee Benson)