Harking back to the sharply written screwball comedies of the 1940s, the dialog snaps and crackles with life, burying hilarious jokes in almost every line and keeping the cast on their toes. Performances have to walk a dangerous tightrope between broad goofiness and shrewd farce, and there are a couple of rather wobbly moments, but on the whole it's dead on target. Clooney is terrific as the man without a conscience who's suddenly smitten, and Zeta-Jones holds her own in a glamorous but intriguingly thankless role. But it's the side characters that really spark, especially one-scene wonders like Hadary's insanely camp Baron Krauss von Espy and Keyes' dopey-wheezy hitman. Rush and Herrmann score in small parts as burned husbands, while Adelstein pokes fun at soppy sentiment as Miles' sucker-for-romance assistant. Cedric's hysterically obnoxious private eye gets the film's best running gag. And there are a lot of them. The story itself is remarkably fresh, avoiding the standard Hollywood rom-com mould; it actually feels original for a change, barrelling through the story to an ending we could predict if we took even a second to worry about it. This is a loud, colourful, amorous, slightly over-the-top comedy that keeps us laughing from start to finish. And for a couple of hours afterwards as well.