Writer-director Harold Ramis has been behind some of the most cherished comedy favorites of the past 25 years. “Animal House,” “Caddyshack,” “Groundhog Day,” “Ghostbusters” – this is the no-pretense stuff of quotefests, reliable repeat rentals, and young comics’ inspiration. “The Ice Harvest,” seems to be an attempt to broaden his resume into noir, following the failures of “Bedazzled” and “Analyze That.”

A flair for managing chaos and directing talented comedians is the main reason behind Mr. Ramis’s endurance, but that hasn’t stopped critics and Mr. Ramis himself from attaching higher aspirations to his work, especially his early films. “Animal House,” “Caddyshack,” and “Stripes” (which Mr. Ramis co-wrote) are often dubbed anti-establishment romps, even though the anti-authority figures are being made fun of as well.

The Chicago-born director’s politics here are sunnily razzy and sarcastic in a boomerish, let-it-ride way, but progressive they’re not. His own self-description as “benevolent hack” is closer to the mark. His favored comedic narrative, self-improvement, which came to dominate his work in the 1990s, leaves characters and audiences alike happier and better than they started.

The apotheosis is Mr. Ramis’s supreme achievement, “Groundhog Day,” in which Bill Murray’s deliciously mean weatherman is doomed to repeat the same day to no apparent end. It’s a great (cosmic) joke, expertly told, and the film is a high-water mark for both director and star.

“Groundhog Day’s” evil twin, however, is “Multiplicity” (1996), in which Michael Keaton’s everyman clones himself to balance family, work, and leisure. Who wants to try unpacking the manifold anxiety that is the main plot device in “Multiplicity”? The jealous Mr. Keaton’s first rule for his clones is not to sleep with the wife, whose desire to return to work spurred their creation, and whom all the clones end up bedding anyway, on the same night.

Mr. Ramis’s latest isn’t quite so high-concept, but film noir comes with its own sets of plot conventions, including ill-gotten gains, wobbly men, and wily women. John Cusack plays Charlie Arglist, a shady Wichita lawyer who thinks that he’s pulled off the perfect crime, and on Christmas Eve, no less. He’s embezzled $2 million from a mob client, which he temporarily entrusts to his partner in opportunity-creation, Vic Cavanaugh (Billy Bob Thornton). All they have to do now is lay low for a while before skipping town.

The real suspense in “The Ice Harvest” turns out to be how Mr. Ramis will play this venerable premise: straight-up slow burn, early-Coen Bros. black comedy, or some new Ramisian composite? Ultimately, he chooses a middle road, but like the streets made slick by the ice storm in the film, it proves a little treacherous.

“The Ice Harvest” takes place mainly in a series of strip clubs, whose owners are clients or friends of Charlie’s. He muddles along from one to the next, drawing close to one would-be flame, Renata (Connie Nielsen). She accepts his help with an ill-defined blackmail problem, and seems amenable to moneyed flight. But Charlie gets suspicious of Vic, and outside, always, the ice storm hovers.

The whole thing works with a rambling feel somewhat reminiscent of Mr. Ramis’s early comedies. But that’s an ill match for noir, which requires a palpable constriction of its victims as they shuffle off this moral-ethical coil. A slack suspense prevails, one that coalesces, confusingly, into occasional Ramisian bits.

Much space is given to Charlie’s buddy Pete (Oliver Platt), a gabby drunk whom Charlie shepherds about. A cryptic line of graffiti pops up repeatedly, like a John Hughes in-joke. Mr. Ramis also demonstrates an anthropological interest in all-nude stripper routines, but that’s another story.

Some of the inertia is due to that ice storm, which, a little like the premise of “Multiplicity,” tends to take over the movie from the inside. It’s a good metaphor both for Charlie’s slipping morality of stealing from thieves and for his practical impasse, stuck waiting things out, brooding, reflecting exactly when he doesn’t want to think. It also threatens to paralyze the film. There are times you even forget why Charlie is in a certain place, or what exactly is delaying a particular subplot – in other words, what is taking so long?

This should be the point where one of Mr. Ramis’s well-directed, well-defined screen presences can step up and fill in. After all, “Harvest” stars Mr. Cusack, the screen’s most lovable wary born loser, as well as the unpredictable Mr. Thornton. But the two come across as opaque, even muffled, with Mr. Cusack resigned to a bewildered demeanor that this movie’s tragic hero doesn’t really earn.

“The Ice Harvest” is an entertaining movie, and an interesting one, if only for being the first genuine step outside the comfort zone that this director of comedies has essayed. But Mr. Ramis, in the one type of movie where you can’t do this, reaches for one of his trusty self-improvement cure-alls to round out his film. The tacked-on ending reeks of test screenings, as Charlie voices pop philosophies. Who ever heard of a noir with a happy ending?

***

For the cartoonish “Just Friends,” speed is a virtue. No matter how silly and shameless this geek-to-chic tale of an unrequited crush gets, everyone knows enough to keep things moving. The Farrelly-esque ids on parade shriek, pinch, leap, and mug their way through a script that cheerfully, hormonally bashes together cynicism and sweetness. The thing collapses from exhaustion halfway through, but it’s snappy while it lasts.

It’s New Jersey, 1995, the high school graduation party. Cuddly tubmeister Chris Brander (Ryan Reynolds in a ridiculous fat suit) wants to be more than friends with sunny pal Jamie (Amy Smart). But the yearbook bearing his sappy proposal is swiped and read aloud to all present. Jamie helpfully confirms that she loves him like a brother. Chris vows revenge on, well, Jersey, and pedals into the night.

Ten years later, a detoured plane flight temporarily lands Chris, now a trim L.A. music exec, right back at home with his family. Effortlessly insincere but good-hearted, he’s dead meat for the old crush. Problem is, he has a client in tow: pop nightmare Samantha James (Anna Faris), an Ashlee Simpson takeoff who’s a Tasmanian devil of fame and libido. There’s also competition from another ex-ugly duckling, the diabolical Dusty (an over-the-top Chris Klein).

The likable cast, especially Ms. Faris with her celebrity grotesque, makes this harmless popcorn entertainment (at least for the spectators). But what really justifies the enthusiastic idiocy is how it nails the regression of homecoming. No matter how much of a big shot you’ve become, Mom will still give you decorated Christmas cookies, and you’ll still fight with your brother. All the strenuous humiliation and goosiness of the pratfall romance pales alongside one well-observed bit where Chris honestly expects to find his old ice skates in a shed and whines to Mom (ditz expert Julie Haggerty). You can go home again; in fact, you never leave.