Trial and Error

Charles Tuttle (Daniels) is living in the fast track. Newly promoted to partnership in his LA law firm, he's also about to marry the boss's pampered daughter. But privilege entails corporate responsibility, and when he's despatched to a desert town to request a continuance on a fraud case, it looks like there'll be no stag party. That's reckoning without the perseverance of chronically accident-prone best man Richard Rietti (Richards), an out-of-work fringe actor who springs a surprise in Charles' hotel room; come the next morning, Charles is seeing Indians. Whoops! To help out, Rick dons a suit, goes to court and screws up the request. Double whoops! It's trial time, and the judge has Rick pegged as Counsellor Tuttle, to Charles' mounting horror. 'The Second Most Outrageous Trial of the Century,' this bills itself. That's a little harsh. Sure, I'd rather not have had to sit through the film - it's flaccid and substantially unfunny - but there's little to offend. The one highlight is Torn's preposterously blithe, perky defendant.