What’s the Worst That Could Happen? (2001)

Starring: Martin Lawrence, Danny DeVito, Carmen Ejogo, John Leguizamo, Bernie Mac, Glenne Headly, William Fichtner, Larry Miller, Nora Dunn, Ana Gasteyer, and GQ
Grade: C

Danny DeVito plays a slimy businessman better than most. In What’s the Worst That Could Happen?, he basically plays another variant of who he was in Ruthless People and even in animated form in Space Jam.

Summary

At an auction, professional thief Kevin Caffrey (Lawrence) looks at some of the paintings on display, and one of the workers sees him and tells him the sports memorabilia auction is next Wednesday. Kevin sarcastically tells her that he’s actually here for all the “colorful pictures” to poke fun at her comment, but she doesn’t get it and excitedly replies, “Good for you!”. She points out the Young Girl by Window painting as being particularly exquisite, but Kevin says it’s a fake. It states that this particular picture is from a 17th century Venetian school, but it’s not. Kevin can tell that the shading on the burnt umber is all wrong. He would date it to the time where the White House was being used as a “get-down spot”. He starts messing with her over it, but she keeps it professional and defends the reputable W. Boyle auctioneer place. Kevin doubles down on it being a fake and tells her he has an eye for this sort of thing. To show her, he calls her glasses knockoffs as well. When he walks away, she takes off her glasses in frustration. When it comes to auctioning off the Young Girl by Window, Kevin is in the audience for it and they announce that the painting has been pulled from auction, prompting Kevin to look over at the annoyed women and give her the “I told you so” look. Next up in the auction is The Hudson River Valley Lake Scene painting. Amber Belhaven (Ejogo) is visibly distraught over the painting and its background, and Kevin notices. So, he goes over to sit next to her, asking what’s wrong. She wants to be left alone, but Kevin persists because he can’t just let her tear up like that after seeing her. Amber tells him that he wouldn’t understand, but he actually does. Kevin deduces the painting is hers and doesn’t want to see it being sold, but she’s in a situation where she has to. As people start bidding and Kevin jokes about the fat guy’s bid of $350 (“give or take a pound”), Amber loosens up a bit and admits her father left her the painting. She loves it, but she needs the money to pay a hotel bill.

Soon after, it’s sold for $2,500. After they exchange names, Kevin offers to take her out for a cup of coffee, and she accepts. On their lunch date, Amber talks about how she moved from London to Boston after university to take a job with a new natural history website, “neanderthal.com”. Sadly, the website went under, so she’s just stuck there. She’s looking for a job still, and her degree is in anthropology. She asks what he does, but Kevin is vague and just states that he’s a businessman.

Once he realizes he’s late for a “meeting” of sorts, he suggests he come by her hotel afterwards to see her. She smiles, knowing he wants to sleep with her but plays coy. He acts like this wasn’t his intention but starts blinking as he lies, admitting it’s a nervous tic of his that shows when he’s lying. He asks if he can see her later, so she messes with him by blinking and replying “Sure”, which confuses him. Amber leaves, smiling at him while she walks away. Kevin loves it and wants to see her again, so he picks up the matches she left on the table. They are from the inn on Pickney Street. Later, he shows up at Amber’s hotel room with the painting. He stole it, but she doesn’t know this. Either way, she excitedly lets him in, and they have sex soon after. Following this, they are lying in bed together, and Amber asks how much the man wanted for the painting because she is willing to pay Kevin back as soon as she gets a job. Finally, he admits he stole it, and his “businessman” job title is because he’s in the business of stealing. It’s why he goes to auctions. It’s to learn what’s worth stealing. He considers himself a “connoisseur of all things portable”. He apologizes to her if she considers it a shock, but she takes it well, bringing up how she dated a lawyer for three years, so she’s seen ethical issues before. Kevin admits he never reveals this stuff to a woman on a first date, but he’s never had these feelings before. She says the same thing about him, and they kiss. Next, Amber shows Kevin her ring. It’s from her father as a reminder from him to her every day on how much he loved her. Amber’s father believed in fate and so does she. With this, she puts the ring on Kevin’s finger. It used to be her father’s lucky ring, but now, she wants it to be Kevin’s. Kevin wonders how lucky he was, so Amber tells him that he was wearing it when he won the painting in a card game. Regardless, Amber wants Kevin to promise to never lie to her. She’s been in that kind of relationship before and doesn’t want to do it again. He agrees, and she smiles because she notices that he didn’t blink. They get intimate right after.

Billionaire business tycoon Max Fairbanks (DeVito) is in a meeting with his lawyer Walter (Richard Schiff), and he desperately wants to be out of the current duress he’s under from a legal standpoint. Walter sarcastically says he will try to undo every shady deal Max has been a part of for the last five years, but Max takes it seriously and is cool with this suggestion. However, Walter gets serious. There are no loopholes available this time. Bankruptcy is Max’s only option. Max is fine with it asking, “What’s the worst that could happen?”. Max’s wife Lutetia (Dunn) doesn’t like this at all because of how humiliating it is, but Max argues that it’s only the real estate company. He tries to get Walter to tell her that it’s no big deal, but Walter stutters a bit before calling it a “technical procedure”. Lutetia talks aloud about how her father may have been right about her marrying Max, but Max bypasses this and assures her this whole thing will work itself out. He calms her down and they head out to lunch. At Uncle Jack’s (Mac) restaurant, Kevin drops in to see Amber. Kevin and Amber are dating now, and she works at Jack’s. Jack likes her and appreciates her work as a waitress, but he’s bothered that Kevin hasn’t pulled a job since Amber moved in with him. Kevin doesn’t care. He loves her. Jack doesn’t think she’s right for Kevin, saying she’s too decent for him. He brings up Kevin’s ex-girlfriend Sharon, a con girl from Chicago. Kevin tells Jack that she’s doing two years upstate for conning people. With Sharon, it was just sex. With Amber however, it’s sex and they talk, which Kevin has grown to appreciate. Amber comes over and they start kissing, leading to Jack walking away annoyed. Just then, Kevin’s friend and fellow thief Berger (Leguizamo) walks over to grab a drink and greets Kevin. Berger compliments Amber, and Kevin jokes that Berger better not let his girlfriend Ann Marie (Gasteyer) hear what he’s saying. Berger downplays it but immediately gets a page from her. Once Amber leaves, Berger lets Kevin know that he has a new job for the both of them. It’s about Max. They go outside to discuss details.

Berger gives Kevin the newspaper on how Max put Trigram real estate, a division of U.T.I., into bankruptcy. Under the terms he agreed to, Max no longer has access to various properties including West Chop, his Marblehead beach front residence. Realizing Max can’t even get into his own house, Kevin is down to rob the place.

That night, Kevin and Berger go to the house and find one light on from the outside. They assume it’s just a way to throw off potential burglars to act like someone is there. After Berger hands Kevin some Isotoner gloves he prefers, they head in. Unbeknownst to them, Max is actually there cheating on Lutetia with his girlfriend Tracey Kimberly (Sascha Knopf). She’s in the bathtub while Max looks at pictures of her in the magazine that she’s plastered all over. Tracey wants to talk about being an entertainment journalist, but Max doesn’t want to talk business. Meanwhile, Kevin and Berger are inside and find a Russian Fabergé egg from 1890 with a gold enamel and diamond inlay. They grab it, and Berger says he will take whatever from this floor to allow Kevin to check out the upstairs. As Max has Tracey practice her entertainment journalism skills with a loofah, Kevin sneaks into a room and steals a load of expensive watches, some shoes, and even takes a swig from a flask that was there. Max hears some of the noise Kevin is making, so he has Tracy be quiet while he walks over to see what’s going on. Kevin talks aloud about how nice the shoes are assuming Berger is near, but Max enters with a gun and points it at a shocked Kevin. Just then, Tracey gets out of the tub to see what’s going on while completely naked, so Max yells at her. Berger is walking up the stairs but hears Max talking about having a gun on the robber, so he panics and runs. At the same time, Kevin admits Max caught him but suggests he walk away with nothing and they call it square. However, Max tells him to stay where he is, or he’ll shoot him in the head. Max has the cops show up to arrest him. The cops tell Max that Kevin didn’t have a gun on him, nor an ID. Max arrogantly asks, “What’s your name, bro?”. Kevin tells him it’s “Petey Wonder” and jokes how he’s Stevie Wonder’s brother that doesn’t sing. Max chastises him for breaking in and trying to take things from him while the cops stand there. Next, he sees Kevin’s ring and says that Kevin stole it from him.

Kevin can’t believe this, but the cops force him to give the ring to Max because they have no reason to believe Kevin is telling the truth that it’s his considering the situation. Kevin relents and gives it up, but he knows this isn’t right. Max sarcastically tells him to write a letter to the editor before reminding Kevin that he owns the newspapers. In the back of the cop car, Kevin talks to the cops to distract them while he uses some small tools on him to get his handcuffs removed from the panel of the door. He rolls down the window, jumps out of the car, hides in a hardware store, uses some bigger tools to get his handcuffs off, and escapes. Kevin then goes back to Max’s house, breaks in, grabs a samurai sword on the table, and runs into the bedroom to threaten Max to get his ring back. However, Max is gone. Realizing this, Kevin robs the place blind because Max has just made it personal. He even snatches the Fabergé egg and steals a car on the way out. Kevin makes it back home, and Amber greets him. She notices there’s a problem, so a distraught Kevin has to admit the ring was stolen. Following this, Kevin tells Jack about the whole thing, and he can’t believe Kevin managed to be robbed during a robbery by the householder. Regardless, Jack offers Kevin $16,000 for what he got from the house. Kevin thinks the offer is weak because the egg by itself is worth a lot, but Jack argues that it’s hard to move, so he doesn’t want it. Jack offers $6,500 for the car on top of that, rounding off the whole offer to $21,500. He adds that this is only the case because he practically raised Kevin as his own and is happy to see him back in the business. Kevin is going over the numbers and doesn’t buy it, prompting Jack to reveal he was just messing with him to see if he was still on his game. Kevin gets back home to Amber, and she’s a lot calmer now regarding the situation. Surprisingly, she wants to know why Kevin is so upset over the whole ring thing. Pulling out the egg, Kevin points out how people are obsessed with something like this, but it’s because of the meaning they attribute to it.

To Kevin, it means nothing, so he tosses it in the waste basket. However, Kevin sees the ring she gave him as priceless because it symbolizes the day his life changed, the day he met Amber. Amber is floored by his reasoning, and they kiss. Sometime after, Max is at a country club and is playing tennis with Monty. After nailing Monty in the balls with a shot, he sees Walter from afar, so he goes over to talk to him. They sit down at the cafe to talk, and Walter tells him about the break-in last night. Thinking it’s the one he stopped in progress, Max sarcastically asked if they got much. To Max’s shock, Walter tells him they stole $150,000 of valuables and a car. Knowing about what happened, Walter tells Max that the robber indeed went back. Walter assures him that Lutetia doesn’t know about Tracey, but that’s not the problem. The bankruptcy judge is furious Max disobeyed his orders to not use the house. Walter asks why he couldn’t just use a motel, but Max starts to laugh remembering what happened during the robbery. He points out the humor of him robbing a thief to the serious Walter at the same time we see Berger laughing at Kevin hearing the story since Max was able to boost his ring right in front of the cops. Kevin doesn’t find it funny. Going back to Max, he tells Walter that it was also fate, showing him how the ring has the same logo as his company. With this, Max sees it as a lucky ring and thinks everything will be just fine as long as he holds onto it. Back with Berger and Kevin, Berger assures him they will get the ring back. Even so, this is going to be big. Because of this, Kevin realizes they need a “big game hunter”. They both know they have to go to friend and computer hacker Shelley Nix (GQ). At Shelley’s place, he laughs at Kevin’s story but goes through the process of tracking Max down on his computer. He knows Max is a high roller with a private jet and will have a limo waiting for him upon landing. Besides this, he has a personal assistant right there in Boston in Gloria (Headly). She emails his itineraries, schedules, and practically knows every detail of Max’s life.

That night, Max calls Gloria and brings up the ring again. She starts flirting with him heavily, but he doesn’t want to go down that road, as they have already gone over this. Frustrated, she goes along with it, and Max talks about how he was close to become anxiety riddled and such, but the ring has dispelled his fears. He sees it as a sign of life turning around and wants her to check this out for him. Since she has a background in fortune telling and mystical stuff, she throws down these three coin-like objects, tells Max to tread a level course, and the “perseverance of a dark man brings good fortune”. Max asks what the Boston Herald called him, and she replies, “The dark prince of plunder”. Hearing this, Max thinks “the dark man” she mentioned is referring to him. She just replies “maybe”. He relates everything she said back to himself. She brings up the time they got intimate in the elevator at T.U.I., but he tells her to focus. Getting back to reality, Gloria consults her tarot cards, and the one she pulls from the deck is the one with the king being murdered. She doesn’t tell him what the card says and acts like their connection is falling apart. Before she hangs up, she reminds Max to call Lutetia. Back at Shelley’s place, Shelly tells Kevin and Berger that Lutetia is the only person Max is scared of. Sometime after, Lutetia confronts Max about who he was cheating on her with at the beach house. He promises he’s a monk, but she says that just because he has the hairstyle doesn’t mean he is one. Not admitting to anything, Max smiles and asks Lutetia why he married her. Coldly, she knows he only did so because she grew up on Beacon Hill, which gave him entree to wealthy family friends who could invest in all his business ventures. Max adds that it was also because she had a great ass. Ignoring this, Lutetia tells Max to not forget that Picker is hosting the botanical garden benefit at the Sheraton Boston Hotel tonight to honor her. Max tries to use this to flirt with her, but she shuts him down by saying it’s 6PM sharp.

At Shelley’s place, he finds the email from Gloria about the benefit tonight at the Sheraton Boston, so Kevin, Berger, and Shelley get ready to go to work.

At the benefit, Kevin shows up with a suit and sneaks in by flirting with two older women while Lutetia is called up to the podium to do her speech. Kevin then sneaks over to Max’s table and sits right next to him. He notes Lutetia onstage and how she’s his wife but jokes how he thought Max’s wife was the young brunette he caught him with. Max thinks Kevin is here to blackmail him, but Kevin assures him that he just wants his lucky ring back. Max refuses because it’s his lucky ring now (“Spoils of war”). Kevin tries to explain it means something to him, but Max argues the same because he took it off a robber while he was trying to fuck “Miss September”. Hearing this, Kevin does give him credit and asks how rich he actually is. Max doesn’t answer. Kevin goes on about how people like Max think they can do whatever they want, but Max reminds Kevin that he was the thief. Kevin demands the ring, Max refuses to give it up, and it leads to the two wrestling over it, which gets the attention of everyone in the room once Max dumps a glass of wine on Kevin that gets him to stand up. Kevin tells him that he’s going to regret this and goes to leave, seeing how security is about to move in on him. Kevin runs over, jumps onto a table, jumps off it, and throws a security guard to the ground who tried to tackle him. Max tells everyone at the table that Kevin was a total stranger. Back at Uncle Jack’s, Kevin details his frustrations to Amber, Berger, and Shelley. He starts talking about wanting to beat Max’s ass and Berger and Shelley hype him up. Amber interrupts because she thought Kevin was doing this for her. Kevin says he is but starts blinking, which Amber notices. He just tells her that there was something in his eye. She believes it and goes back to work. Once she leaves, Kevin sits down with Berger and Shelley and they get serious. Shelley tells him that Max and Lutetia are going to some cocktail party, and they will get back by around 8:30PM.

By then, they’ll snatch the ring from Max in his home. However, while the couple are out of the house, they plan on robbing the place. Meanwhile, Max, Walter, and Gloria meet with Judge Callahan (Michael Mulheren). Walter brings up how Callahan has a sworn statement from Max that he only went back to the house in question to pick up some important stuff.

Callahan is bothered by Max’s attitude and how he thinks the rules don’t apply to him, threatening to reopen the bankruptcy proceedings. Max counters with how Callahan wasn’t so cocky previously when he came to Max with his hand out asking for money. Gloria tries to stop Max, but he continues by bringing up how much it cost him to get Callahan elected by spreading stories about his opponent being gay. They get into a shouting match, with Callahan telling him to sell the house and all the contents at a public auction. Max responds by calling him a fat pig. After they walk out, Walter questions why Max got so crazy in there, and Gloria points out how Max forgot who he paid off, as it was another judge that he helped out, not Callahan. Reminding Max of her advice of treading a level course, she is bothered Max isn’t listening to her anymore. Walter tells Max that he gets one final visit to the house to gather and remove any personal effects. Gloria gets flirtatious again and says she can come along if he needs some help, but he bypasses this and calls Tracey in front of her. That night, Max and Lutetia wait outside for their car to come while discussing the party they are going to. Max is still saddened from earlier, so Lutetia reminds him they have a bunch of other houses left, so this isn’t that big of a deal. At the same time, Kevin and Berger are on the roof and are about to rob the place, though Berger has a bad feeling about this whole thing. Even so, Berger promises he won’t leave Kevin high and dry like last time. He disarms the alarm, allowing Kevin to break in the door. Outside, Max tells Lutetia that Callahan is letting him have one last visit to Marblehead to collect his belongings, so he wants to know if he can drop her off at home after the party to allow him to go for one last overnight visit by himself. Knowing how much he’s been through today, Lutetia tells him they will forget about the party, and he can go get his things from the beach house instead. They go back inside the house, and Kevin and Berger hear them.

As Max talks about getting a few things to take for the overnight stay, Lutetia decides she wants to go with him to Max’s shock. Once they move to the upstairs, Kevin and Berger head downstairs to escape. In the bedroom, Max tries to plead his case to go alone, but Lutetia argues that he’s in a fragile state and can’t bear to think of Max alone during it. She also implies they will get intimate, so Max excuses himself to the bathroom and calls Tracey to forget about tonight because there’s no way out of this. When Lutetia rushes Max to hurry up, Kevin and Berger can hear her and they run back upstairs to hide. Max and Lutetia leave and turn on the alarm system, only giving Kevin and Berger seconds to get out of there. They don’t get out in time, and the high-tech alarm system turns on immediately after the door closes. There are motion detectors everywhere, and Kevin and Berger are stuck in-between motion detector lasers to the point where they can’t move. Kevin calls Windham (Lenny Clarke) for help. Windham is an escape artist who works as a magician on the side. Pulling up in his van with his wife Edwina (Siobhan Fallon Hogan) and their three sons, they openly talk about how Windham is going to break into this house. While Windham and Edwina argue and take turns yelling at the kids, Kevin and Berger are in a panic inside because they are struggling to stay standing in their positions. Berger also has to take a piss. Kevin tells him that he won’t say anything if he pisses himself, but Berger reminds Kevin that’s what he said last time. Following this, Windham uses a device to get the numbers for the alarm system and Edwina gets the lock. They disable the alarm system, and Kevin and Berger fall down the stairs after realizing they can relax. As they walk through the house, Windham and Edwina tell the two about their 10-year anniversary and invites them to their anniversary party in September. On the way out the door, Kevin grabs a bottle of wine.

Following this, the four go back to Uncle Jack’s, and Jack is happy with what they got. He gives them two options. He can give them a $200,000 cashout right there, or he can fence most of the valuable stuff for a much larger figure and square it with them later. They all go with the cash offer, garnering a laugh from Jack. Kevin goes back home to Amber and calls the mission a failure because he didn’t get the ring, showing her his take of $60,000 from the split. He does give her a red jacket he stole though, and she loves it.

Still, this isn’t over by a long shot. Kevin still wants that ring and is going to do whatever he can to get it back. However, Max is not going to give it up, as he’s just as motivated to get Kevin back.

My Thoughts:

The question posed in the title and the film itself is, “What’s the worst that could happen?”. Well, the answer to said question is not having a good enough script to match that talents of its all-star cast. With superstars like Martin Lawrence and Danny DeVito on board to lead the charge, and they’re backed up by a supporting cast of comedic stars like Bernie Mac, John Leguizamo, the underrated Glenne Headly, and Saturday Night Live‘s Nora Dunn and Ana Gasteyer, all they needed was an involving screenplay that maximizes the overabundance of talent. Shockingly, it’s one of those rare mainstream comedies where almost everyone is underutilized to a degree. The star power attracts the eye and still has its flashes of early 2000s comedy fun, but calling the movie underwhelming would be an understatement.

Throughout the movie, the viewer will find themselves waiting for that big moment to put it over the top, but it never comes.

Not that it’s the main reason as to why the movie disappoints, but the mishandling of the film’s marketing and promotion can and does play a factor here. For starters, the title suggests madcap chaos being the center of the movie, and it’s a good title for a large scale, high-concept, wacky comedy. What’s the Worst That Could Happen? tries to be that, but it’s clear that the title belonged to a different film entirely, one that was simply funnier. Along with the title not living up to the expectations it sets for itself through sheer existence, the poster doesn’t tell the whole story either. It looks and is for the most part a showdown between Martin Lawrence and Danny DeVito, with the focus being on a battle of wits, pride, and ego between the two stars, hero and villain respectively. With the two meeting each other’s gaze with a smirk, it implies this cold war of sorts is going to be a big deal, giving even more reason as to why this title doesn’t fit the narrative’s events. However, there’s a disconnect with this “focus” too. At first, the driving force behind the plot is this battle for Amber’s ring. Exemplifying protagonist Kevin Caffrey’s words early in the movie, it’s not about the object itself but rather the meaning one attributes to the object. When Amber bestowed Kevin her father’s ring, he saw it as a symbol of their relationship. The wealthy Max taking it out of spite and just because he’s a prick who saw an opportunity to rob a robber, which in his defense is kind of funny, motivates Kevin to get it back. He can steal from Max’s many houses all he wants, but it doesn’t matter to Kevin. After they rob Max’s other house, Kevin nets $60,000 but sees it as a bust because he didn’t get the ring, emphasizing why this ring is such a big deal. Meanwhile, Max becomes obsessed with it because he sees it as his own lucky ring. Even though he’s a billionaire and he has a lot more important things to worry about in his life like his many lawsuits, his bankruptcy proceedings, and infidelity multiple times over, he becomes attached to the ring just as much Kevin wants it back.

Both of them attach a special meaning to it that no one else does, and they make it their mission in life to hold onto it, which is why it’s too bad the Lord of the Rings title was taken because that’s essentially what this movie becomes. On that note, This Means War would have worked too, 11 years before the Reese Witherspoon romantic comedy came out. Nevertheless, they still don’t do a good enough job in convincing the viewer that this ring is worth going to the ends of the Earth to get it. We get why they care for the ring, but the reasoning is still not strong enough on either side of the coin as to why they are willing to risk so much for it. There needed to be more examples as to why the main characters are convinced of its power or meaning, or Lawrence and DeVito needed to do a better job in making the viewer believe in their obsession and devotion to the object for what it gives them. Quite frankly, it’s not felt in the manner in which its presented. The stakes simply needed to be higher in making audiences accept the lengths that both men are willing to go to get this ring, which ultimately means nothing in the end. Throughout the movie, they are getting into physical altercations and shootouts, they are risking prison stints with their multiple police run-ins, and they are putting their relationships at risk. It’s all for a ring? Yeah, there has to be more to it than that. The meaning behind it or it being a potential lucky charm isn’t good enough to warrant such risks taken. Again, maybe the performances aren’t strong enough. The desperation of Kevin and Max in these situations needs to be more obvious when their egos take hits when losing a battle to the other. Sadly, the performances aren’t forceful enough to show why Kevin is willing to direct all of his focus on this billionaire or why this billionaire is willing to waste this much time on someone who shouldn’t matter in his life. It’s written that Kevin cares that much about it and vice versa, but it’s not convincing enough to warrant such drastic action. Then again, is that even what we are supposed to be taking away from the movie?

This is the problem with the screenplay.

It doesn’t commit to what it’s actually trying to sell as the story. It begins with the awful timing of the ring’s introduction into the movie. We can buy into love at first sight for the sake of a movie, but the first act has Kevin meeting Amber, having a coffee date where he reveals nothing about himself while she reveals everything, he steals her painting back for her, gives it to her, and fucks her that day. Realistically, this timeline of events happens in the span of probably 2-3 hours at most. Somehow, Amber doesn’t even flinch over Kevin’s revelation that he’s a professional thief, which might be the first time this has ever happened in cinematic history. She makes an offhand comment that she dated a lawyer prior, so she’s dealt with ethics issues before and this is whatever to her. Even so, this is nowhere near a good enough excuse for Amber to be that cool with such a dangerous job, unless Amber has a twist about her like she adores bad boys, her father had a background involved in some shady stuff which makes her numb to something like this, or she has a tendency to fall in love easily. However, nothing more is said about Amber and her background after these early scenes. She’s a well-educated anthropology major and apparently has no qualms whatsoever about Kevin showing up at the house with a giant Fabergé egg, $60,000 cash, or glowingly talking about how he robbed someone’s house. What the hell is wrong with this woman? How did Kevin luck out like this? There has to be some kind of character detail to explain why such an innocent looking woman has zero issues with Kevin’s career choices. Now, the two having sex in the same day they meet is not a shock to the system. Still, even if Kevin tells Amber that he’s never revealed the details of his career to any girl that quickly before her and she reveals the same about herself, neither in this exchange are convincing enough that they aren’t just saying this because they just had sex. Regardless, the real slap in the face comes right after.

Keep in mind the only facts Amber knows about Kevin up until this point…

She just met Kevin earlier that day, he blinks when he lies, and he steals things for a living. Apparently, this is enough to trust Kevin’s word without question, and it results in a deep enough connection between the two that she gives up her prized ring to a literal stranger. Mind you, this ring is from Amber’s father, who gave it to her as an everyday reminder that he loves her. Excuse me? Had the story progressed to where Kevin and Amber began dating, she got her waitressing job at Uncle Jack’s, and then she gave Kevin the ring, this would make a lot more sense because it would be established that they know, love, and trust each other after spending so much time together. However, the way it’s presented in the first act is asinine. It may have worked if the story was dramatic, and there were some serious dramatic actors involved to sell this passionate 3-hour love affair that leads to a likable thief scoring a family heirloom off a woman he just met and now they’re madly in love, but the way it happens here is ludicrous. Why does she trust a flat-out stranger in Kevin that much? This is someone who literally lives day to day stealing. He doesn’t even have a regular job to offset his stealing in an effort to bide time. All he does is steal, they have a basic conversation about it, she’s nonchalant about the whole thing, they have sex, she makes the professional criminal promise to never lie to her, and she wholeheartedly believes it when he promises to do so. You’re telling me she trusts a thief she met over the course of a single day to never lie to her? Who is this woman?! Then, she just hands him this ring that her father gave to her and meant the world to her after one fuck session? Yeah, dad would be really proud. Am I missing something here, or is this completely outrageous? Despite all of this, they STILL don’t commit fully to the driving force of the film, being that this object was supposed to be this ultra-important foundation of their relationship.

Following Max stealing Kevin’s ring, he comes back to Amber sad over what had happened, and she’s mad too since the ring meant a lot to both of them. In just two scenes later however, Amber is already over the whole thing, as if the ring didn’t mean at all what she was selling it as in the first act. She even asks why Kevin is so bothered by the whole thing, despite the fact that they wasted a good 15 minutes of the movie stressing to the viewer how much the ring meant to the both of them and their relationship as a whole. Why is she suddenly surprised why Kevin is pissed it got stolen? Why isn’t she angrier? If anything, she should be more upset than Kevin is since she took a leap of faith by giving her new boyfriend her father’s ring and he lost it almost immediately! Again, who is this woman? What the hell is wrong with her? Kevin does a good job convincing her how much it means to him during their discussion, but midway through the movie, this is thrown out the window too. After the failure to snatch it at the Sheraton Boston, Kevin talks about just wanting to kick Max’s ass, which is fair. Nevertheless, the conversation is only about Max at this point rather than the ring itself. Once Amber interrupts because she thought Kevin’s whole motivation was to do it for her and what the ring meant to their relationship, Kevin assures her that it is but starts blinking, implying that he’s lying. Herein lies the problem with What’s the Worst That Could Happen?. What is the movie actually about? Do they even know? It was the ring, then it wasn’t, then it was again, and then it didn’t even matter. It continues all the way to the ending (SPOILERS, SPOILERS, SPOILERS). After Amber gives Kevin the real ring back after she sneakily massaged it off of Max’s pudgy little fingers, he’s happy to get it back. After ALL of this, Amber says the ring has the wrong kind of luck and wants Kevin to throw it away. Without a moment of hesitation, he does so, and they kiss. So, what the fuck was the point of any of this?

Amber is the one who says this all needs to stop, so why does she feel the need to help in getting the ring, only for her to want it gone? She literally says that she doesn’t care about the ring and just wants him, and Kevin says that he’s good with this before he starts blinking again when she wants him to confirm he will forget about it. Part of it wants us to believe in the deeper meaning of why Kevin’s obsessed with getting it back, but he doubles down on the less believable point of how she gave him something, he lost it, and he just can’t have that between them. That’s just not a strong enough reason. Then again, if the point was that the ring really didn’t matter, despite being the focal point of 85% of the movie, why didn’t they lean into the other side harder and emphasize the philosophical side of things, with two men waging war to the point where the goal is secondary to the one-upmanship at hand?

Amber boiling this entire back and forth between Kevin and Max being a “juvenile, dick-measuring contest” is essentially what the movie becomes (“Wait a minute. Now you know if this was a dick-measuring contest, I’d be declared the winner. Baby, elephant truck!”). As stupid as it may sound, this is actually much more compelling than the MacGuffin plot, but this uncovering of what the story is truly about happens too late to fully capitalize on it because half of the audience will still think it’s about the ring to some degree until the end. The potential of a premise regarding two stubborn, goal-driven egos driving all of the action to where everyone in their lives becomes affected is seen when Max speaks with Gloria at his house. She wakes him up and has him take a pick out of her tarot cards, and he picks the one with the king being murdered with five daggers, confirming her suspicions that messing with Kevin is going to lead to no good. He asks how bad it will be based off the card to which Gloria comically replies, “Well, I guess a guy with 6 daggers in his head would be worse, but they don’t make that card”. Gloria tries to get him to put a stop to this whole thing, and it leads to Max revealing the essence of the screenplay saying, “I can’t. Once a man in my position gives in, lets his defenses down, is weak for one single moment, he’s dead. That’s the way it is with animals in the jungle. That’s the way it is with me”. Finally, we get some insight into why this billionaire refuses to let go, even if he doesn’t need this. Had it been introduced earlier, this is a wildly compelling character flaw that could have carried the movie on his end, but they reveal it much too late to fully capitalize on it. His likening this “silly ring” as Gloria calls it to a bone just being a bone “until two lions decide that only one of them is gonna walk away with it” is a brilliant line.

THAT should have been the focal point of What’s the Worst That Could Happen? from the outset. It only turns into this gradually after Kevin fails a few times in getting the ring back when it should have been the centerpiece of the drama from the first act. More edge was needed in the protagonist to drive the plot logically. Lawrence’s Kevin needed more Martin Payne in him, where any time his masculinity or ego is threatened, he lashes out and needs to get revenge. This would perfectly explain why Kevin goes as far as he does for one small ring. On the other side, Gloria’s explaining of Max having this incessant need to always win, figuring out what he wants, doing whatever he can to get it, and then tossing it aside to move on to the next thing once he does get it is a great character description that should have been showcased in full, leading up to his crossing paths with Kevin. They shouldn’t have waited until late in the second act to explain his personality and why Max’s own mindset refuses to let him back down to this random person. Doing this and then leading to the mutual respect conclusion would have made a hell of a lot more sense, as their “love of the game” would have been exemplified by everything that happened previously, along with the correct character development that was needed to get there logically. It doesn’t work with how it plays out, as Max can’t get away with saying “Fuck you and your girlfriend!” on live TV to Kevin, and they become friendly afterwards. Had their personalities been thoroughly developed to show why both have massive character flaws regarding their egos and attitude, it would have been seamless. Basically, all the pieces were there to make an intelligent comedy that was so much more than what was on the surface, especially with such a great cast involved. Sadly, they stuck to the surface level stuff for the most part and didn’t realize the potential of the movie until later in the process.

It’s not devoid of humor, but in a film that consists of Lawrence, DeVito, Mac, and Leguizamo, the funniest people shouldn’t be William Fitchner and Larry Miller. Yet, the two famed character actors steal almost every scene they’re in and are responsible for nearly all of the biggest laughs of the movie. In a role we have never seen Fitchner portray before, he’s the eccentric blonde detective assigned to Max’s case in the small-dog-loving Alex Tardio. Wearing light colors like white, beige, and pink, donning snakeskin boots, and holding a cane he doesn’t need, Fitchner emanates a strange sexual energy into everything he says while trying to get to the bottom of things, and it’s very funny watching him make everyone around him uncomfortable with his style, as well as how good his intuition is. You don’t know what to make of Tardio, but you want more of him just spouting off random details about himself like how he has 3 Bichon Frise dogs himself and then directing it back to the case as he unbuttons his suit jacket, stretching his arms over the length of the fireplace as if he’s getting turned on by it. It’s all tactics he employs to mess with people like Max, and the viewer can tell with how quick he is with his responses. Max just passes off him going to the beach house as being sentimental and suggests Tardio would know what he means, but Tardio hilariously responds in an instant, “I’m a renter. Why are you selling the house?”, as if to say he’s not a friend and he doesn’t want the runaround from Max. What’s funny is that he already knows what’s going on with Max. Max explains how he’s selling the house as part of a court settlement/technical procedure, so Tardio sarcastically responds as if he doesn’t know, “Bankruptcy?”, knowing it would piss him off. After tripping Max up with his questioning about being there during the robbery at the beach house and Max arguing this was innocent because he thought Tardio was bringing up Tracy, the viewer can sense the mind games Tardio is playing and so can Max.

Even if Tardio is wrong about his implying that Max hired a burglar to rob his own house to collect the insurance money, it’s all a means to an end. He just makes his presence known as if he’s telling everyone to tread carefully, gets enough information to move on, and then leaves with a final line to put himself in the win column, like noticing Gloria’s fascination with him and setting the seeds of her snitching by talking about a Yorkie being “an independent dog but a devoted companion, and despite his small size, he is more than willing to act as a guardian for his master”. The kicker was Tardio replying “Yes” to Max wondering if Tardio is trying to trap him or is looking for a bribe and once he leaves, Max hysterically comments “What the hell was that?”. Very rarely will a viewer ever demand more screen time for William Fichtner, as he’s usually used an appropriate amount to beef up the supporting cast of crime dramas, but he’s so funny here that the movie would have benefitted if he had more screentime than love interest Carmen Ejogo. Him asking Jerry if he saw him at the ice capades would have been reason enough for me to change course. Once they started shooting his first scene and saw the direction he was taking the character, director Sam Weisman should have halted the production, demanded a rewrite to bring him into the story earlier, and include him in more scenes to bounce off of the anxious Kevin and egomaniac Max. It was all right there for them to fix. The fact that Tardio already knows Kevin from previous events gave them a built-in backstory that could have allowed for more moments involving the two. Sadly, they only share two scenes together. One in which they waste by Tardio’s dog farting while they talk instead of just focusing on the dialogue, and the other is the amusing climax where Tardio is none too surprised in seeing Kevin on the capsizing speedboat with Max (“Tres bizarre”).

Just Kevin lying and saying he’s been golfing as a response to Tardio’s question of what he’s been doing lately, which leads to Tardio saying he doesn’t have much time for sports but has been drawn to figure skating was absolute gold. Tardio telling his dogs to pull “daddy like a chariot”, acting like a driven detective you do not want to mess with, and then happily directing his dogs “Walkies!” upon walking away is the weird comedy the film desperately needed. The same could be said for Larry Miller as Max’s head of security Earl Redburn. His introduction was the shot in the ass the movie needed, with him waking up from a nap due to Max’s phone call and shouting “INCOMING” because of his PTSD. It was exactly the comic energy we were looking for from the very beginning. There’s not one scene where he doesn’t at least induce a chuckle from being in the elevator with his gun and commenting, “God, I’m hard”, to accidentally shooting at Max because he was pepper sprayed in the eyes, to him getting a compliment from Max and he responds “If the boys at the pentagon had had your faith in me, there’d be a Disney World in Cuba right now”, or his misconstruing of Max’s directive to help him up (“I am so flattered sir. I’ve thought about this too, more than once, but honestly an employer and employee, what are the percentages?”), which leads to him trying to pass it off as a joke. They don’t miss an opportunity to get a laugh with Miller, as opposed to the scene in which Walter quits in the limo, which was heavily botched from a comedic perspective.

Even if they weren’t as consistent as we’d like, there are still funny moments involving the stars like Kevin taking the money out of the PAC letters and writing to the senators “Dear Senator, eat shit, love Max”, Max cussing on C-SPAN after Kevin calls him in the middle of the subcommittee hearing, and Max refusing to help Tracey and telling her she has no talent, which leads to her wanting to go home and threatening to call Lutetia so the plane has to take a U-turn. The funniest moment was arguably Kevin and Berger acting like wealthy Arabs to sneak into Max’s apartment complex, and Leguizamo being a standout in the scene (“For right amount, camel can dance up pyramid… It loses something in translation”). You could tell Lawrence is trying to match Leguizamo’s fast-paced improvisational humor and struggling. Lawrence telling the worker “Give her big hug, beef jerky” was great, as was Berger’s explanation to the woman “He said he would like to hump you, but we are on a very tight schedule”. Leguizamo also gets a chance to pull off a monocle-wearing German auctioneer in the climax that is just as funny. He really was underrated as a comic. In addition, Kevin acting as a lawyer “from the firm of Whiteman, Small, Johnson” was a great joke too, though having Kevin help Max continue his monopoly in owning too many media and broadcasting companies in key markets seems like an inappropriate message for the movie to end on, even if it was mildly amusing to see Martin Lawrence in the big afro wig.

Also, what’s up with Lawerence running and jumping into a freeze frame ending? He did this in Blue Streak too. Is this some recurring gag I didn’t know about? Furthermore, there is no shot in hell Danny DeVito is fast enough to run and jump onto a moving boat. He couldn’t have done that in his 20s, let alone where he’s at in this movie.

Though Martin Lawrence and Danny DeVito being mismatched adversaries was a cool novelty, What’s the Worst That Could Happen? is a disappointment. It’s a decent watch but nothing special, which furthers its label as a letdown because it should have been epic as far as comedic standards go. The film gets by because of the likability and charisma of the stars and some funny moments, but it’s nowhere near as funny as it should be considering the cast.

Fun Fact: Originally, Heath Ledger and James Gandolfini were slated to star, so we can only assume the script went through a lot of changes.