About ten minutes into this misfiring caper comedy wannabe assassin Amanda Peet opines: "This isn't working.".

Well, perhaps they should have cut their losses then.

Instead, director Howard Deutch stubbornly embarks on a doomed uphill struggle which sees Bruce Willis decked out as a charwoman and a gang boss who makes Syd Little look sinister.

Willis reprises the role of Jimmy "The Tulip" Tudeski, a former hitman enjoying the quiet life in Mexico with his wife Jill (Peet).

Thanks to falsified dental records supplied by one-time neighbour Oz Oseransky (Perry) he faked his own death after double-crossing the Hungarian Gogolak gang.

Now gangboss Lazlo (Kevin Pollack) is out on parole and the first thing he wants to do is rub out the hitman who killed his son. That's Jimmy.

This appears to have been plotted, written and created in a hermetically sealed room without the benefit of any disinterested party observing that it's not really very funny.

Willis, who, on current form is America's answer to Ross Kemp, is hamstrung by the law of diminishing returns - the harder he tries the more sidelined he appears.

Peet struggles with a one-dimensional role while Natasha Henstridge seems content to vamp it up in a number of body-hugging suits.

Perry is the bright spot, bringing some slapstick and sorely needed precision comic timing to the role of innocent abroad.

However, the 34th time we see him fall over or walk into a door might have been the opportune moment to mine another comedic source.

The whole thing, save a handful of acerbic lines, is limp, directionless and suffers the quiet desperation of a battle the stars know they are losing.

The Whole Ten Yards doesn't go the distance.

Tim Evans