Building an entire movie around endless jokes about "Wheel of Fortune" and Yugos--those short-lived, teensy imports roughly the size of a toy peddle-car, but with something resembling an engine--is an idea about 15 years past its prime. Yet here's "Drowning Mona", a disconsolate black comedy about a bitter old harridan (Bette Midler) who takes a header into a lake in one of the tiny, tinny cars, and the sheriff (Danny DeVito) who has a town full of folks who were itching to see her dead. And boy oh boy, is this a town filled with rubes (consult their choices for transportation and board games for proof)--add everyone's IQs together and you might just hit 100.
Except for DeVito's good-intentioned lawman, who's oblivious to the epic unpleasantness surrounding Mona and her family, every character is a tiresome caricature, and the cast--which includes Neve Campbell, Jamie Lee Curtis, William Fichtner, and Casey Affleck--is all too happy to oblige the screenplay's limited vision of humanity. Only a couple of minor background touches--a funeral home's sign boasting "As Seen on TV!"; a lawn-care company's drably uninspired T-shirt motto "Yeah, we can do that"--elicit anything near a chuckle. Otherwise, "Drowning Mona" is a particularly grungy movie visually--it looks as though the camera itself was nursing a hangover throughout the shoot--and betrays a cynically misanthropic attitude toward its characters, not to mention its audience. "--David Kronke"