Town & Country (2001)

The hermetically wealthy characters who populate Woody Allen's Manhattan-based comedies of manners are models of realism and diversity compared with the expensively dressed humanoids scuttling across the sterile landscapes of privilege in Town & Country. This expensive, coarse, and unfunny romantic comedy stars Warren Beatty and Diane Keaton as a rich architect and his well-designed wife celebrating 25 years of smugly happy marriage with their best friends, played by Garry Shandling and Goldie Hawn. Happiness doesn't preclude extramarital itch, however, and each man scratches in his own ''amusing'' way.

The architect's dalliances include a free-spirited cellist (Nastassja Kinski) and a sex-hungry, psychologically unstable heiress (Andie MacDowell) with a creepy attachment to her stuffed animal collection and her gun-toting father (Charlton Heston, undoing anything he says in defense of the NRA). Directed with a white flag of surrender by Peter Chelsom (''Hear My Song''), these characters are mannequins in search of hearts, brains, and courage. Also dramatic incentives, a decent plot, and dialogue that's more than a string of punchlines.

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