This has everything. Slapstick scenes with military grade explosives (is that better than mining grade or for that matter terrorist grade) oceans 10 type crime planning, romantic comedy and a complex plot which is a little tricky to follow. So why 3 stars, (at the time of typing the average rating was 2)? Not sure, it just doesn't hang together well; possibly too many genres in one space, possibly the juxtaposition of humour and cold violence. It is a formula Hollywood production (hero does incredible thing and meets girl who doesn't like him at first but then does) but is saved from sickly sweet banality by a good whodunnit middle section.
A bank is on the brink of closing for the weekend, almost no customers are left; except strangely neurotic and hyperactive Trip (Patrick Dempsey) when all of a sudden the bank is robbed. Then, all of a sudden, the bank is robbed again. In the midst of all the mayhem surrounding two coinciding bank heists poor neurotic Trip is certain that there’s more than coincidence at work.
Flypaper is played very much for laughs, the coinciding bank jobs involve a sleek well thought out attack on the vault and a haphazard attempt to steal cash out of ATM machines using explosives bought on eBay, by hillbillies.
Although there’s a few funny parts to Flypaper the attempts at comedy are relentless and largely unimaginative, so rather than having you in fits it leaves you more with an irritating headache.
A couple of things save the movie from being utterly dire, largely it’s the ridiculous but excellent performance by Tim Blake Nelson and actually, on the surface, the movie’s premise has a lot of potential, one can’t help but wonder if only Dempsey’s character had been developed a little more then there could have been some genuine depth and intrigue around the whole bizarre scenario.