The Impostors

Stanley Tucci's follow-up to Big Night is not nearly as delicious or filling. You might say (and this will do it for the food puns) it leaves you hungry for more. Or at least for one of those sparkling 1930s screwball farces Tucci and company strain to emulate. Tucci and Oliver Platt star as Arthur and Maurice, luckless, and apparently talentless actors, who run afoul of Broadway ham Jeremy Burtom (Alfred Molina). They escape his wrath (and the police) by unwittingly stowing away on the very cruise ship on which Burtom is sailing. This ship of fools contains a gallery of colorful characters, including a deposed queen (Isabella Rossellini), a morose crooner (Steve Buscemi), a gay tennis star (Billy Connolly) and a Teutonic steward (Campbell Scott). Unfortunately, they are not given anything all that funny to do. Also onboard, so to speak, is Woody Allen in an unbilled cameo as a--what else--angst-ridden playwright for whom our ersatz Laurel and Hardy audition. There is much running about, door slamming, screaming and mugging. If only the movie were half as much fun to watch as it obviously must have been for the ensemble--a who's who of independent film--to make. Not recommended. (K. Lee Benson)