Call it audacious, if you will: 20th Century Fox released the Farrelly brothers mildly funny comedy Stuck On You the same day as the very funny Something's Gotta Give was released.

But some box-office experts did not believe that Fox  was all that audacious. Wasn't the studio trying to woo a different moviegoing segment, they wondered. Fox was trying to reach the under 25 crowd, they reasoned, while Columbia was hoping the older moviegoers went to see Something's Gotta Give. I see some merit in that line of
thinking.

If Stuck On You did not open to big numbers like many other Peter and Bobby Farrelly films did, it is mostly because of its own fault. The film, which is also about brotherly love, is not uproariously funny and stirringly sentimental.

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Though the idea of building a story around conjoined twins who are always together seems interesting, the film suffers because it offers only a few genuinely funny jokes. Halfway through the film, you might suddenly start thinking the Farrelly brothers' Shallow Hal was a terrific film, even though it was really very inferior to their crude but bellyaching comedy There's Something About Mary.

A worldwide hit the 1988, Mary also had a lot of sweetness. And the divine Cameron Diaz. There is hardly an angel in the new film. 

Joined at the hip for over three decades, Bob (Matt Damon) and Walt (Greg Kinnear) have learned to live normal lives in a small Martha's Vineyard town. They have also mastered the art of keeping their condition a secret.  They are so successful in their secrecy that they run a successful hamburger joint and even play on the local hockey team.

Bob has the tendency to be happy and contented, but Walt is burning with Hollywood dreams. Having performed in a one-man show about writer Truman Capote (with Bob in the 'background'), he really wants to try his luck in Hollywood.

So the brothers go West where, with help from their neighbour (Eva Mendes) in a shantytown motel, Walt is cast in an awful detective television series. Star Cher, who is playing a parody of herself in this film, wants Walt in her show, hoping his presence would sink it.

But thanks to some interesting 'script doctoring', just the reverse happens.

Meanwhile, Bob's longtime Internet pal (newcomer Wen Yann Shih), who has not been able to figure out why Bob and his brother have to be together all the time, enters the scene. She wants some serious consideration to be given to her
plans for herself and Bob.

The brothers finally think that there should be a solution to their increasing problems. And that, as you expected, would be to physically separate them. But wait. It is not that simple. For one thing, they share one liver, and that belongs to Bob. And there is also a strong possibility that Walt may not survive the surgery. The medical condition adds to the film's sentimentality, and holds up the film.

Earlier on, the sibling directors create quite a few funny situations, including the one in which Walt is doing the one-man show act but the way sentimentality intrudes, you may think the Farrelly brothers have got a bit tired of straight comedy. Every time its momentum starts to build, the film is thrown off track by bits of ill-timed sentimentality. And that's never a good thing when the film has essentially a one-joke premise.

There was certain amount of sentimentality in Mary too, but it was handled with far more grace and genuine sweetness than here.   

Damon and Kinnear are fairly okay though you feel time totime that they are not really suited for a comedy. But they seem to navigate their physical situation with ease.

Cher has fun playing off her star image but the other cameo artist (the unbilled) Meryl Streep who features as Kinnear's co-star in the musical stage production of Bonnie and Clyde seems a bit stiff, though the situation itself is quite funny.

CREDITS
Cast: Matt Damon, Greg Kinnear, Eva Mendes, Wen Yann Shih and Cher
Director: Peter Farrelly, Bobby Farrelly
Writers: Peter Farrelly and Bob Farrelly, based on Charles B Wessler and
Bennett Yellin's story
Running time: 2 hours
Rating: PG-13 for crude and sexual humor, and some language 
Distributor: 20th Century Fox