User Reviews

If Hollywood had promoted "Trial and Error" as more than a comedy romance, I'm sure it would have drawn a bigger audience and some discerning reviews about the breadth of the film. That's because this film is much more than a comedy romance. How can anyone miss the satire of our court system and the law profession? This film has some wonderful spoofing of attorneys, judges, juries, witnesses, and big law firms.

It also has a very clear critique and commentary on social classes, the trifles of high society weddings, ambition and personal quest for power and wealth, marriages of convenience without love, and more. In an early scene, we see the two leading men in one's new law office. It's a wrap-around corner with glass windows and views over the whole city, and a huge waste of space. The ridiculousness of it is accentuated by the solitary desk and chair across a huge room with nothing else in it.

The film touches on the scams and frauds being perpetrated in our country, especially against the gullible. My one complaint is that the writers might have chosen a better scam to be prosecuting - one in which older people especially get taken to the cleaners. But then, this one lends itself perfectly to spoofing and the hilarious courtroom "drama." To get an engraved likeness of Abraham Lincoln for just $17.99? Who couldn't bite? Indeed, how we no longer count our pennies as a society!

"Trial and Error" is not a movie of many funny and witty lines. Or even a great deal of romance. It doesn't have a lot of situations for out-loud laughter. That may be why many of the viewers drawn to it don't think much of the film. But, again, had the film been promoted for its satire and breadth, it likely would have drawn a wider audience and much greater appreciation.

Of course, there are some very good scenes of laughter. Michael Richards plays Richard Rietti, an actor who is out of work at the time. Jeff Daniels plays his friend, Charles Tuttle, who is a lawyer. Jeff says he hopes Richard didn't do his godfather routine at his recent tryout. In a flashback, we see Richard doing just that. He's hilarious and has tremendous body machinations. He bounces from one wall to another, flies across a room, falls to the floor and twists and turns in reaction to imaginary punches, kicks and throws from imaginary mob men. The courtroom scenes are peppered with very funny antics from various people - Richard and Charles especially. But the judge too gets in the picture. Austin Pendleton plays Judge Graff. Could his name be an intentional play on words (as in graft and corruption)? And the jury members are definitely part of the fun and farce.

Rip Torn, as Benny Gibbs, gives one of the best down and out pity stories on film intended to evoke laughter. And it does, with me. In another scene, Richard is in his hotel room watching a video on trial procedures. The speaker is the legendary Wyoming trial attorney Gerry Spence. He strikes a chord with Richard when he says that the courtroom is like a stage play and the trial lawyer is in charge. He's the producer, director and star of the show.

The film has subtle humor throughout, as Charles tries to stick to the facts while Richard goes for the theatrics. The court system is supposed to rely on the facts, but clearly, emotions will win out most of the time. That's because of the human element. One must wonder if justice is truly served, or if it is mostly a huge stage for lawyers to get rich. This film brings all that to the fore; and it spoofs the testimony of "expert" witnesses as well. Charles says to Richard at one point, that money will always find people willing to testify one way or another. Lying is a part of the game.

But, after a while, our heroes decide they want to change and have the system work for real justice. That's the conclusion of the film. And, oh yes, there is romance and "real" love for both leading men. They are helped along by good performances from Charlize Theron as Billie Tyler and Jessica Steen as Elizabeth.

One last plus for the film is the setting. It's supposed to be in Lone Pine, Nevada, for which road signs were made. But it was shot in and around Lone Pine, California. So, the film has nice scenic shots of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

This is a delightful film and spoof. Those who watch it for what it is are sure to enjoy it immensely. My favorite line is from the uptight and frustrated Charles, after Richard has flummoxed the judge, jury and prosecuting attorney. Charles says, "We don't wanna win, Richard. This isn't about winning. This is about not getting lynched."

Jeff Daniels plays a lawyer who has finally made it to partner in a big-city law firm, and he is about to marry the boss' daughter. Michael Richards is his best man, a struggling actor. The firm sends Daniels to a town in the middle of nowhere to defend a man accused of fraud, which means his bachelor party has to be postponed. No, it doesn't! Richards and the gang show up in Nowheresville and have the party anyway. Daniels gets beat up, and Richards makes a mistake with his medication, meaning Daniels is in no shape to go to court the next day. Richards knows all Daniels plans to do is ask for a continuance, so he goes to court posing as Daniels' character. The beautiful female prosecutor (romantic interest for Richards?) refuses, demanding that the trial start right away. Daniels is feeling better when the trial starts but, of course, he and Richards could get in a lot of trouble, so Daniels poses as Richards' associate. Richards stumbles through jury selection and the first part of the trial and the judge can't understand why an associate is giving him so much help. Daniels ends up getting himself thrown out of the courtroom, and the funniest moments in the movie come from his attempts to communicate with Richards. Later, Daniels starts a romance with a waitress he met at the bachelor party, who he later met and told he was Richards' character. The movie's tone changes about halfway through, still funny at times but no longer farcical. Richards reminds me a lot of his Kramer character, clumsy but able to pull off a scam quite well, even if he never approaches being convincing as a real lawyer. But the prosecutor describes his performance as Oscar-worthy, and that's not too far off. SPOILERS FOLLOW: Richards eventually gets what he wants but isn't happy about it, and Daniels realizes he wasn't happy in his old life. There is still more to the movie, and it isn't entirely clear what will happen. The moral dilemmas and how they were handled make the movie a little more substantial. Still, how Daniels handled his romantic situation seemed a little too neat and tidy. We are left to assume how it must have happened. An enjoyable picture. If you really want to know the funniest moments, Daniels falls through the courtroom ceiling after communicating through the heating vent, and using a walkie-talkie and a variation on Morse Code with the car horn, Daniels attempts to feed signals to Richards , but a near-accident resulting in lots of angry horn-blowing results in a frenzy of ridiculous objections from Richards.

Funny, and committed to a fun time with actors blazing their talents without a care in the world other than entertainment for entertainments' sake. Sometimes that is all that is needed when you are down, I have been down and this has lifted me up again (& again)... this movie has been a mainstay in my collection of movies to look to for a good time and has never let me down. Good Job! Look for an early play by Charlize Theron and don't forget to look for who is now George Stephanopolous' wife as the bitter Fiancée. And Thanks for many a night of joy and happiness ( since I watch it over and over again!) So, thanks!

My title is a quote from a scene in the courtroom after both Mr. Rietti and Mr. Tuttle have switched their names and roles for the trial, where Mr. Tuttle (posing as Rietti) remains standing after the first time and right before the second time Tuttle as Rietti is told by the judge to sit down.

I have to admit, the reason is idiotic why Rietti (Sienfeld's Michael Richards) and Tuttle (Dumb and dumber's Jeff Daniels) swap identities for the courtroom. Lawyer Mr. Tuttle is mistakenly told by his boss that all he has to do is go to small town Paradise Bluff, NV and request a continuance, and then he can come home and marry his boss's daughter, played by Alexandra Wentworth as another typical 1990s style snobby L. A. woman (types who have appeared in countless 1990s movies and have no objections to sneering down at anyone beneath their social status (Rietti is an example of one who Alexandra sneers down on in this movie)). The defendant (Rip Torn) that Tuttle is sent to Paradise Bluff to request the continuance on is a relative of Alexandra and her dad (like a cousin or brother, and Alexandra's uncle, I suppose).

First upon arrival in Paradise Bluff, Mr. Rietti shows up with a few of his buddies for a bachelor party and they take Mr. Tuttle to the town bar to get plastered (why they couldn't have made the smarter choice to have done that on the evening after Tuttle went to court was obviously because we then wouldn't have had our main plot of the movie with the switched identities). Tuttle meets Charlize Theron for the first time as a bar waitress who particularly suggests getting him a Paradise Manhattan (named that because they're just Manhattans but are being served in a town named Paradise Bluff). I know he was drinking, but it was still utterly stupid how Tuttle chimed in on two local roughnecks getting into a fight over who's the owner of a slot machine winnings, and they then both punched Tuttle out. After that (supposedly a doctor saw them between these scenes), Rietti tells Tuttle back in their hotel room to rest, sober up, and to take prescribed painkillers for his assualt injury. Rietti tells him to take one every 3 hours. But Tuttle mistakenly takes 3 every one hour (nobody's too drunk to not see that taking 3 percosets or hydrocodones every hour is the stupidly wrong choice), and he ends up by the morning being so completely hopped up, just laying there looking like a dumb cow with a stupid grin. He can't even stand up or repeat the simple line he was supposed to say in court (Rietti: "repeat after me, 'your honor,'". Tuttle: "'my honor"'). When Tuttle's first waking up high on opiates, he says "My son, he has many cattle", all spaced out with that very dumb cow grin.

Tuttle hyperventilates when first hearing about Rietti impersonating him in court, and how prosecutor Jessica Stien refused the continuance, and how Rietti has to keep impersonating him (extremely carefully) or they'll be caught and prosecuted for fraud. During his panic attack, Tuttle meets Theron again and finds out that she also works as a waitress at the hotel as well as the town bar.

Now, as dumb as the set-up is to where the two men trade places, some of the courtroom scenes were quite funny and enjoyable, largely due to 1) the funny dialogue in court by Rietti, 2) Rietti bringing in people to help who were grossly inexperienced (the nutritional "expert" (Jennifer Coolage) was very flakey, and the "doctor" looked like he was still in highschool). 3) Rietti's flawed theory of sugar leading the defendant (Rip Torn) to be incapable of being able to tell right from wrong (Neither Rietti or Coolage understood the chemical structured differences between sugar and cocaine (Prosecutor Stien explains the differences in atom structure between the two, and Coolage's response is "well, how big is an atom?", then Stien tells her (sarcastically) "you must be brilliant in other ways too, can you also bend spoons?")). Then, 4) there was the humorous ways of Tuttle trying to quietly lead Rietti to say the right things in the courtroom (lots of funny "objection!" "sustained" "overrulled" lines), him first showing flashcards, and eventually Tuttle getting thrown out of the courthouse because he fell through the ceiling from an overhead duct pipe, quite funny. 5) Austin Peddleton as the judge was quite amusing too. I remember him playing a similar type of character in 1980s movie "Short circuit" as a scientist. Both of his roles, here and in "Short circuit", he plays a short tempered yet goofy character. 6) Rip Torn as the defendant, he was obviously a guilty character, yet insistant on trying to right every wrong he has done in his years of being a fraudulent salesman (selling customers pennys for $17, but saying that they're valuable copper engraving of Lincoln (how he was able to fool his customers until after he had their money, the movie didn't explain). Rip does give a sentimental yet funny speech on the stand near the end of the movie.

A couple other dumb bits (besides Tuttle not being able to go to court to request a continuance because of him drunkenly interfering with fighting hoodlums and then taking a whole bottle of Percesets) were Rietti's overly desperate attempts to make the moves on Stien, first in the bar on Tuttle's bachelor party night, then in Stien's office (i.e. Rietti putting his hand on Stien's shoulder, Stien not liking it, and Rietti replying by saying that he doesn't like the barrier between them on human contact), Rietti really didn't understand the rules of appropriate behavior between a lawyer and prosecuting attorney, let alone between a man and woman (and that was besides the fact that he was impostering an attorney, a felony to do that in the courtroom during a trial). I also didn't care for the part where Tuttle was sitting in his car outside the courthouse communicating via walky talkies, and Tuttle was supposed to honk out the correct signals so Rietti would know when to object in court. But then he makes another one of his several stupid moves in this movie, he just gets up and walks away from all of it just because he sees Theron pull up. Never mind how much he was freaking out throughout the movie til then on getting through this trial. Suddenly in that moment, it meant nothing to him? And the third stupid move he made was a little earlier in the courtroom when he suddenly jumps up yelling hysterically "I object!!! I object!!!", getting him thrown out of there. It doesn't make sense, he knew that they all thought he wasn't a lawyer and that he couldn't object, and he knew that even a lawyer can't just start screaming hysterically in a courtroom. It was just dumb.

I did though like a few of the romantic scenes between him and Theron, and am glad that he ended up choosing her over Alexandra and her snobbery.

Anyway, a funny movie in many parts, a few dumb parts, I give this a 7.

I was severely disappointed with this movie the first time it came out, mainly because at the time I was at the peak of my "Seinfeld" fanaticism. I thought Michael Richards was one of the funniest actors out there, and I absolutely loved him as Kramer. And of course, the film doesn't live up to its trailer--and that's something I still feel, even after my second viewing. The trailers make us assume this is a raucous, fast-paced comedy with lots of physical schtick, when it's actually a lot more low-key. It's strange because at the time I wasn't aware that Jonathan Lynn directed this film and I thought to myself, "Geez, 'My Cousin Vinny' was so much funnier. Whoever this director is should've learned from that movie." Of course, "Vinny" is one of my favorite comedies of all time and it's extremely difficult to top a wonderfully original courtroom comedy of that kind.

Anyway, there was a sale at my local West Coast Video, where I was able to purchase 5 videos for 19.99, so I decided to pick up "Trial and Error," with a gut feeling that this time I'll probably keep a more open mind and enjoy it a lot more. Well, I popped in the tape and I was impressed. This is a funny film, and I got a lot more laughs than I did when sitting in the theater. Sure, it's no "My Cousin Vinny" and I can't help but watch a courtroom comedy with that comparison in mind, but I was still able to enjoy it for what it is.

Michael Richards is not nearly as funny as Joe Pesci, but he was able to deliver some laughs without being over-the-top, which I found impressive. Sure, I loved him as Kramer, but the movie's name is "Trial and Error" and not "Seinfeld," and his job to play a CHARACTER. And he did a fine job at playing this character, even showing in certain scenes that he has potential as a serious actor. Richards is a good actor, and not simply a comedian who transfers his act to the big screen, like in the case of a Chris Tucker or Cedric the Entertainer. Jeff Daniels is a very funny straight man, and some of his emotional outbursts are really enjoyable to watch. Charlize Theron is her normal beautiful, charming self. I just wish Alexandra Wentworth could've been given a less thankless role. She doesn't get much chance to flaunt her talents as a comic actress.

*******SPOILERS AHEAD*********

What prevents the movie from being a great, memorable comedy is its predictable, utterly formulaic plot. Daniels is engaged to a woman, who he obviously doesn't like in the first place, and from one twist of fate he falls for another woman and decides to bump the marriage. And of course, there's the case with Richards, where he pulls his "fake lawyer" act disastrously at first, improves as he goes along and finally has an attack of conscience and decides to lose the case, allowing the slimy defendant to pay his debt to society. Didn't I see that in "Liar Liar"? And other movies of this sort?

Despite its flaws, I liked the movie and was able to accept it for what it is...the second time around. I imagine others had the same feelings as I did on the first viewing. "Trial and Error" isn't a must-see, but it's worth watching.

My score: 7 (out of 10)