Stanley Tucci and Oliver Platt form a kind of Laurel and Hardy partnership in this Woody Allenish Twenties-set zany comedy, complete with a cameo from Allen himself as a harassed theatre producer. Tucci and Platt play out-of-work actors who take refuge as stewards on an art deco luxury liner after they insult a nauseating English Shakespearean ham actor (Alfred Molina), who also hoves up on ship and is after their blood. Also aboard this ship of fools are bisexual wrestler Billy Connolly, deposed monarch Isabella Rossellini, German ship's officer Campbell Scott, stewardess Lili Taylor and pathologically depressed singer Steve Buscemi. The clever Mr Tucci writes, directs and produces an often hilarious movie, with a high tally of laughs-out-loud, a sea of witty ideas and hilarious scene-stealing performances. Platt in drag is hysterical and so is Scott's lip-smacking Nazi. A little comic gem.

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