A winceworthy legal comedy that will surely try your patience before it improves towards the end. So there are a few smiles here for those who can wait. Jeff Daniels is a lawyer about to marry the boss's daughter and become a junior partner. He's mysteriously billed below Seinfeld's Michael Richards, playing the ham actor who, as Daniels's best man, transfers the stag party to Nevada when Jeff is drafted across country to plea a continuance in the case of crafty con-man Rip Torn. Well, it goes like this: Daniels gets plastered at the party and falls for the waitress (Charlize Theron); the continuance is denied and Richards, standing in for his legless friend, gets lumbered with the entire case. Luckily, Daniels, Theron and Jessica Steen as the prosecutor are likeable performers and Pendleton has a few amusingly zany moments as the judge. The fly in the ointment is Richards, whose lumbering, colourless performance continually drags the film down.

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