My Giant

I can't remember a film getting as much mileage out of a single visual gag as My Giant gets out of its one and only visual gag: diminutive Billy Crystal (as a low-rent talent agent) teamed in a buddy-bonding comedy with 7'7" professional basketball player Gheorghe Muresan (as the Romanian giant he brings to America to exploit/befriend). It's enough to make you wonder why they don't make silent films anymore, when this one could have been so much more enjoyable without a single character opening his or her mouth. Crystal has always been good with a reaction take and milking a laugh visually, but he has buried that gift in recent years, taking on joke-light and pathos-heavy plots in which he plays workaholics who learn What Really Matters. Muresan, meanwhile, shows surprising charm and comic sense, looking for all the world like a Great Dane puppy in a peasant shirt. Unfortunately, he also employs the kind of marble-mouthed diction which makes you wish that the big guy would continue to smile engagingly while embarking on fewer adventures into the English language. Very optional. (S. Renshaw)