You Never Know What Will Happen in the Woods
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

Leaving the “Without A Paddle” screening, I overheard someone say: “That has got to be the dumbest movie I’ve seen this year.” Obviously, that guy hadn’t seen “Van Helsing.” Steven Brill’s mediocre, uncredited remake of “City Slickers 2” and “Deliverance” concerns a trio of 30-year-old friends who, spurred on by the sudden and unexpected death of an adventurous childhood pal, drop everything to go on a treasure hunt that they’ve dreamt about since they were kids.
And so Jerry, the Dilbert-like miserable office worker (Matthew Lillard); Tom, the aimless ladies man (Dax Shepard); and Dan, the cold fish/spaz (Seth Green) hike into the woods to find D.B. Cooper’s hidden stash. (It was Cooper, you may remember, who in 1971 threatened to blow up a 727 airliner, then jumped out of the plane with a $200,000 ransom strapped to his chest). They find themselves tangling with hillbilly drug dealers and an obsessive bear, and engaging in various other hijinks.
Most of these scenes seem to be little more than overlong sketches. Making fun of Southern stereotypes is an easy way to get a good laugh, and if nothing else, this method is amply explored. Mr. Brill (“Little Nicky”) displays little constraint here, liberally stealing jokes from comedies past, and the film spirals out of control: Is it a buddy movie, an action comedy, a gross-out comedy, or – as it seems to be at the end – a hokey message movie? (Granted, the moral is given to us in the form of Burt Reynolds, playing a mountain man and associate of the MIA D.B. who has wasted his life).
This movie’s PG-13 rating keeps it from being as sharp or biting as its director and cast probably would have liked. Not to mention its audience.