Intrigue, murder and flying Yugos

Ah, remember the Yugo? Kinda went the way of the LeCar, didn't it?

Drowning Mona takes place in Verplank, a wee hamlet in upstate New York whose only distinction, it seems, is that the Yugo Company test-marketed its memorable little product there in the early '80s. Everyone has a Yugo, from the coroner to the cops, and everyone has personalized plates.

Mona (Bette Midler) kicks off the film by piloting her yellow Yugo off a cliff and into a river. Over the next twenty minutes of the film we are introduced to a motley cast of characters who, rather than bemoaning Mona's demise, celebrate her removal from this Earth by pounding Coronas! There's Phil (William Fichtner: he's great!), Mona's husband, who can continue his extramarital fling with Rhona (Jamie Lee Curtis) sans fear of being hit by Mona's frying pan.

There's also Jeff, Mona's son, a latter-day Forrest Gump with a stump for a right hand who remains as indifferent to Mona's death as he was to her existence. There's Bobby, who partners a landscaping business with the incompetent Jeff who's thrilled that now, with Mona out of the picture, he can fire Jeff safely. (Bobby, by the way, has the most annoying voice since Sharon Stone in Gloria. Then there's Ellie (Neve Campbell), who is engaged to Bobby and simply hates Mona.

Finally,we have Police Chief Rash (Danny DeVito), Ellie's father, and the one man who believes that Mona was "offed." Everyone has a motive, and it seems that motives aside, everyone is happy that Mona is gone. So whodunnit? That's the central question of Drowning Mona, and there are a lot of laughs along the way to answering that question.

The movie is, at times, hilarious: the sequences with the buffoonish cops and the philandering funeral home owner (Will Farrell) are priceless. However, call me prudish, but There's Something About Mary seems to have started this post-PC trend of laughing at physical and mental deformity, and I'm not a big fan. A good 35 percent of the humor in Drowning Mona is centered around Jeff's stump hand, and that seemed a bit much for my bleeding-heart liberal ass. Drowning Mona is a good ride, however. Definitely worthy of something more than a Yugo.