Finally, someone made a buddy-cop movie without all the lame police drama trappings.
"Nothing to Lose" uses the great chemistry between Tim Robbins and Martin Lawrence strictly for laughs in the story of an ill-fated criminal caper.
Robbins plays advertising mogul Nick Beam. He is rich and successful and his life would be great if his wife was not having an affair with his boss.
Lawrence plays electronics expert T. Paul Davidson. He's poor and unemployed and his life would not be that great even if he weren't driven to a life of crime by the cruel and uncaring business world.
T. Paul makes the mistake of trying to rob the despondent Nick one hour after Nick arrived home from work to see his wife's back writhing up and down on another man in their bed.
"Boy, did you pick the wrong guy on the wrong day," Nick says before taking off on a perilous high speed drive through downtown L.A. and into the desert that leaves T. Paul sobbing for help.
What follows is occasionally predictable, but always hilarious as T. Paul and Nick plot to rob the high tech office of Nick's former boss -- T. Paul could use the money and Nick could use the vengeance.
Robbins makes good use of his size and babyish face, which contrast well with Lawrence's aggressive persona. The comedy ranges effectively from broad to subtly nuanced jokes, as in the scene where Nick and T. Paul argue with the cashier at a store they are robbing over who is the scarier armed robber.
Writer/director Steve Odekerk has crafted a strong comedy, which offers a lot of good, solid laughs. Nothing more, maybe, but certainly nothing less either.
