For his follow-up to the 1999 big-budget misfire ''Wild Wild West,'' Sonnenfeld may have pared down the special effects, but he certainly ramped up the size of his cast. In this adaptation of columnist Dave Barry's best-selling novel, an unsuccessful adman (Allen), an evil businessman (Tucci), his neglected wife (Russo), grouchy hitmen, dim thieves, funky FBI agents, and a half-wit living in a tree all become explosively entangled over a black-market nuclear bomb in Miami.
Among Sonnenfeld's stylistically diverse cast (which also manages to find room for ''Saving Private Ryan'''s Tom Sizemore, ''Almost Famous''' Jason Lee, ''Life'''s Heavy D, and ''Jackass''' Johnny Knoxville), some of the comic vets were frustrated by Sonnenfeld's stock directorial command -- ''flatter and faster'' -- says Jacobson. When Allen improvised punchlines, he'd hear from Sonnenfeld, ''That would be great, Tim, if that was the movie I was doing.'' ''I fought with him the whole time,'' adds Allen. ''Right to when we were showing first and second screenings, I was saying, 'You took my f---ing joke out!' But I learned to trust him, and I don't normally trust people. Now I say, 'Yeah, it didn't really fit.''' We can only imagine what Sonnenfeld had to say about Knoxville's suggestions.
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