When Alaskan travel agent Paul Barnell finds a dead body in the trash, he decides to pass the corpse off as his long lost brother so he can collect a hefty insurance premium and aid his failing business as well as his ailing wife. This not only attracts the attention of an overzealous insurance agent, but also of the two thugs who placed the body there in the first place, for they need to bring it back to their employer as proof that they performed their murderous task.

Set in the amazing scenery of Alaska (although filmed near Winnipeg) and with an impressive cast consisting of Robin Williams, Holly Hunter, Tim Blake Nelson, Woody Harrelson and Allison Lohman, this movie has the ingredients to be a comedy-dream come true. Particularly since Mark Mylod, a veteran of British TV directs it. He is comfortable with the irony and dry wit that would make a movie with such a wacky storyline palatable. But despite a reasonably large number of laugh-out-loud-moments, this film just does not deliver on its promises and leaves the viewer unsatisfied.

That is mainly because the details are all wonderfully executed and generally very funny, but the overall story has been made too heavy for the light-hearted subject matter. Also, considering the title, Alaska could have (should have, even) been a separate character in this film, but Mylod makes almost no use of it. With the exception of a great opening scene and one or two jokes further on in the movie, this story could have taken place anywhere. It is a waste of both the movie title and the striking locations at hand. The opening sequence is actually a good example of what is wrong with this film. It leaves you hungry for more, but from there on the movie dwindles and fades, not nearly delivering on what it suggests is still to come. Instead it all becomes drab and predictable from there on.

This is made worse by the acting. Robin Williams seems so hell-bent on being a serious actor these days, that he weighs down his part unnecessarily. He appears to be acting in a drama, not a comedy, and this film could have benefitted from some vintage Williams-wackiness. Giovanni Ribisi does his usual overacting. Why this overestimated actor continues to find work, is one of Hollywood’s little mysteries, for I have yet to see him give a nuanced performance. Harrelson and Lohman, in smaller parts, are somewhat wasted on this film as there is not enough for them to do. They seem to have been added as garnish. The only two actors who are consistently on the ball are Holly Hunter and Tim Blake Nelson, but their great teamwork is not enough to keep this movie afloat.

A plot that stretches suspension of disbelief as much as this one does, is always tricky. It requires rigorously consistent direction in order to not fly off the rails and leave the audience annoyed, rather than amused. Mylod has dealt with these kinds of storylines before in his TV-days, and handled them well. But here it seems he bit off more than he could chew and it just does not come together right.

It’s one of those movie alchemy things really: all the ingredients are there, everything is stirred the right way, and yet the magic does not occur. It proves once more that there is no such thing as a formula for moviemaking (no matter what the studio bosses and their test audiences are trying to make us believe). Sometimes the magic just happens for no apparent reason. Or not, as the case may be.