When I heard about this film, I was hoping and expecting a film like “The Producers” and you do sort of get that. However, it lacks the wit of that film and that’s a real shame because the setup is there but the film just fails to knock it down.

Michael Caine (“Batman Begins”, “The Italian Job”) and Steve Martin (“The Jerk”, “The Pink Panther”) star as two con-men that try working together but have such different styles that it just doesn’t work and therefore they make a bet to see which one can secure a set amount of money from a specific woman.

Michael Caine and Steve Martin are both very talented but the film never allows them to truly express themselves in clever ways as we see Martin play a ridiculous interpretation of a mentally-challenged man that proves to be as funny as Martin’s more recent and sadly bad films. Mr. Caine gets a slightly better deal here perhaps. The chemistry between the two should work but they’re given such vastly different approaches that it never really works and that’s annoying because I really can see the duo working well together. The other characters are bland and leave very little impact.

I found “The Producers” to be a funny movie and this film is the same on the surface but it lacks the heart. “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” isn’t really a movie with ups and downs but rather an averagely amusing vibe to all of it and as a result doesn’t make much of an impression. I like both stars a lot, I think Caine’s suave and sophisticated look makes him memorable and I think Martin can be very funny but he has a tendency to pop up in the wrong films and this is another one to add to his list of bad choices.