The Whole Nine Yards

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

The Whole Nine Yards is a 2000 Mafia comedy, directed by Jonathan Lynn. Chandler Bing Nicolas "Oz" Oseransky (Matthew Perry) is a dentist living and working in Montreal. His life is miserable: his wife and mother-in-law hate him and he is broke thanks to his father-in-law. Then Jimmy "The Tulip" Tudeski (Bruce Willis), a hitman hiding out from the mob, moves in next door. Hilarity Ensues.

The film received a sequel: The Whole Ten Yards (2004).

Tropes used in The Whole Nine Yards include:
  • Acronym Confusion: In the sequel, Lazlo Gogolak often makes mistakes about idioms and terms and hates it when people correct him. For example, he thinks that a DUI and an IUD are the same thing.
  • Adorkable: Props to Oz for actually making a plotpoint out of his likability: Oz is so likable that both Jill and Jimmy are unable to kill him even though they were both supposed to at separate points.
    • Jill is also this with respect to Jimmy and contract killing.
  • Affably Evil: Franky Figgs. Jimmy, depending on how you look at it.
  • As Long as It Sounds Foreign: Exaggerated by Kevin Pollak as Janni Gogolak to great comedic effect; includes unconventional contractions, randomly emphasized letters, and swapped consonants.

Janni: Don't b'long.
Oz: Don't blong?

  • Ascended Fangirl: Jimmy offers Jill her first kill--Janni Gogolak and his Mooks.
  • Berserk Button: Jimmy has two--putting mayonnaise on a burger and adultery. Who knew?
    • Lazlo Gogolak dislikes being corrected.
  • Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Jill may count, since she initially posed as Oz's assistant in order to kill him.
  • Bloodless Carnage: Oddly enough, several people are shot in this film but don't bleed.
  • Boy Meets Girl: A very atypical version for Oz and Cynthia.
  • Bullying a Dragon: When Jill finds out that Oz slept with Cynthia, she haphazardly blurts it to Jimmy and Frankie. Needless to say Jimmy blows up. While he didn't kill Oz, he was very close to doing so. Loudly demanding his location when Oz refused to let him kill Cynthia. While this would seem odd since he wanted to kill Cynthia. However it becomes somewhat justified because he considered Oz his friend and too likeable to kill. Not to mention this was after a scene where Jimmy nobly mentions that Sophie propositioned him in exchange for a contract out on Oz. Which he politely declined on the principle that a friend would never sleep with his friend's wife.
  • California Doubling: Averted. When the filming started in Montreal, the script was rewritten to have the story take place in Montreal too.
  • Chekhov's Skill: It turns out that Oz's job is more useful than for making jokes about dentists being suicidal-- the only way to wipe his debt clean with both the mobsters and Jimmy is to replace the dead cop's dental records with a copy of Jimmy's and burn all the bodies.
    • Except, in the sequel, Lazlo Gogolak quickly puts 2 and 2 together and comes after Oz.
  • Deadpan Snarker: When he's not being spastic, Oz is pretty deadpan. Then again, what else would you expect from Matthew Perry?
  • Did You Just Have Sex?: Jill is so good at this, she can sense it over a phone line.

Jill': So, did you do it? Did you do what I told you to do?
Oz: No, no. I'm not gonna answer that!
Jill: So you did?! I can tell. You had sex!

Jimmy: I'm gonna send this back and ask for another one, but if you put mayonnaise on it I'm gonna come to your house, chop your legs off, set your house on fire, and watch as you drag your bloody stumps through the door.

    • The threat (minus the burger part) is actually word-for-word from a message Bruce Willis left for Matthew Perry. Due to a slight miscommunication, Bruce was under the impression that Matthew Perry was dragging his feet signing on to the movie. So he called him and left a message explaining that he needed to sign on to the movie, or Bruce would...well, see the above. When the director found out, he found it sufficiently hilarious that he had it added to the script.
  • Distracted by the Sexy: Jill has an interesting scene where we find out just how good she is at her job.
  • Divorce Requires Death: Played (sort of) for laughs. The mobster wants to murder his wife because divorce is a sin for Catholics.
  • Every One Remembers the Stripper: The film itself is fantastic but most people only remember the fact that Amanda Peet got topless for one scene.
  • Everything Sounds Bitchier In Quebecois French: Oz's wife's accent is rather strong.
  • Fan Service: The nude scenes with Jill.
  • Friends All Along: Jimmy and Frankie Figgs, except instead of acting like strangers, they act like they want to kill each other.
  • Gilligan Cut: An "immediate" variation - Jimmy tells Frankie Jill "has definite potential" as she's walking away, and she immediately trips on the grass, yelps, and falls over.
  • Good Adultery, Bad Adultery: Both; also Played With by Jimmy, who's very particular about what's good and what's bad, made all the weirder by the immorality of his profession.
  • Hidden Heart of Gold: Jimmy and Jill give Oz and Cynthia one million dollars of the contract money provided that they get married. Aw.
  • Hitman with a Heart: Jimmy and Jill.
  • Identification by Dental Records: Jimmy tries to put Oz's skills as a dentist to good use.
    • Which leads to Fridge Logic. There's no massive, searchable database of dental records. When unidentifiable bodies are found, their dental impressions are compared against likely candidates, usually locals reported missing. Each possibility's records have to be individually tracked down (probably with a subpoena or permission from next of kin) and examined by someone trained in dental forensics. There would be no reason for police in Montreal to suspect the corpses on their hands are (as far as anybody knows) still-living mobsters and hitmen from Chicago.
      • Fridge Brilliance: The only body that had to burned beyond recognition was the one that had been doctored(dentisted?) to be Frank's. Steps were obviously taken to ensure that Janni's body _was_ identifiable, or maybe Jimmy deliberately left a wallet nearby for the cops to find, something that would give them an idea whose dental records to start checking.
  • I'm Standing Right Here: Oz finds out Jill was hired to kill him when she's gushing to Jimmy about it right in front of him.
  • Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: Franky Figgs uses this on Oz. It works.
  • The Klutz: Oz. At various points, he spins around, runs into Frankie and falls over, smashes into a glass door, tries to sit on a stack of items as they slowly collapse under him, and almost flips over backwards putting his feet on his desk.
  • Laser-Guided Karma Sophie gets this hard. After saddling Oz with her father's massive debt, forcing him to collect a bounty on Jimmy's head and trying three times to hire a contract killer to have him killed; she witnesses Jimmy kill her hired hitman, gets arrested for fleeing a crime scene and is pinned for the murder of said hitman who turned out to be an undercover cop. Her attempts to pin it all on Jill, whom she originally hired to take Oz out, make her come across as hysterical while the cops see Oz as sympathetic. Most notably, Sophie along with her mother, are never seen in the sequel. Implying she may have gotten a life sentence.
  • Meet Cute: A very interesting subversion with Oz and Cynthia. He's up to his neck in hitmen and death but still finds her beautiful and compellingly strong.
  • Mooks: Being a mob boss and all, Janni always has men around him.
  • Odd Couple: A hitman and a dentist.
  • Only Sane Man: Oz. Cynthia is the Only Sane Woman.
  • Operation: Jealousy: In the sequel, Jill gets fed up with Jimmy focusing more rescuing Cynthia than patching up their own relationship. Strabo advises her that if she wants Jimmy back, she should sleep with another man to make him jealous. While Strabo, initially wanted to be that man, Jill instead goes for Oz. Naturally Oz is confused and tries to fight her off, but she rolls with it and starts making loud noises to make Jimmy think Oz is screwing her brains out. He walks in, naturally pissed and throws Oz against the wall knocking him out. After calming down, he realized the ploy and retreat to the next room to have make-up sex.

Jimmy: First my Ex-Wife and now my WIFE-WIFE!!!?

  • Pet the Dog: When Janni recruits Oz to help him kill Jimmy, Oz asks if there is a finder's fee, making it clear that his wife pressured him into asking. Janni laughs at him at first, along with the rest of the gang, but then calmly and politely reassures Oz to tell his wife, they'll work something out.
    • Before she was revealed to be, Frankie Figg's sister, Julie seemed genuinely happy and excited for Oz when he announces that Cynthia is pregnant.
  • Rich Bitch: Oz's wife acts like one and so does her mother.
  • Running Gag: Oz's beeper scaring the crap out of him because it usually goes off in high-stress situations.

Cynthia: It's your beeper.
Oz: I know.

Cynthia: I haven't had sex in five years.
Oz: Neither have I. *Beat* I've been married.

Cynthia: (standing very close to him) Have you vomited recently?
Oz: Just a minute ago. I was about to brush my teeth.
Cynthia: (moves away) I'll wait.

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