The feature-film debut of writer-director Larry David, co-creator of TV's Seinfeld. Its jumping-off point provides a bona fide crisis of etiquette if not ethics: a couple of close cousins are playing side-by-side slot machines in Atlantic City when one of them, down to his last quarter, solicits two quarters from his crony to fill up all possible coin slots, and promptly hits the jackpot: $436,214.50. Once the initial excitement dies down, the conflicting viewpoints divide up like so: "They were my quarters" and "It was my machine." Between these positions, there is plenty of room for discussion: and, as it comes to pass, for argument, for rupture, for peace offering, for proposed compromise, for renewed flare-up, for plotted revenge, for overreaction, for troubled conscience, and so on. At at least one or two points, the plot takes a perilously wide turn (the mercy-killing scheme, the testicle surgery), but there is always, no matter how many wheels leave the road at any time, a resolutely and relentlessly logical follow-through. Admittedly, there is a frequent (almost constant) Seinfeld-ian feel to the shenanigans, but the substitution of new faces in familiar roles is to some degree instantaneously refreshing. And although Steven Weber might be unrefreshingly slavish in his imitation of Jerry Seinfeld (just as actors in a Woody Allen film will often look and sound too much like Woody), Craig Bierko brings a teeter-totter moodiness and an open-book dopeyness all his own. The opening credits sequence, a quite literal illustration of the title and an accurate prognostication of the arc of the storyline, is highly amusing, and a gratuitous spoof of a Friends-type sitcom has the invigorating sting of competitive contempt. (1998) — Duncan Shepherd
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