One of those high-budget, yet relentlessly schlocky movie-star vehicles which both pander and condescend to a mass audience; the pedigree talent involved may well warrant a viewing, yet the film is so pompous it makes viewers feel like chumps for watching. Harrison Ford plays a slimy, self-absorbed lawyer whose life takes a drastic turn after he walks into a liquor store being robbed. Annette Bening plays Ford's spouse who helps her husband through a difficult period, and has a rebirth of her own. This is precisely the type of material director Mike Nichols would have thumbed his nose at twenty years ago; working here rather joylessly, Nichols wraps all the phony uplift in cinematic Saran Wrap. The self-deceit (and smugness) hanging over the film is like a gray pallor. *1/2 from ****