A small time Chicago grifter (Dustin Hoffman, doing a broad variation of Ratso Rizzo) rescues the victims of a plane crash, including hot-shot TV journalist Geena Davis, but watches down-and-out Andy Garcia take the credit and, more importantly, the million dollar reward offered by Davis' newsroom to help milk a great story. The set up is clumsy and the ending is unforgivably anticlimactic, but in between is a compact, subversive black comedy, mocking the common daydream of being an anonymous hero by showing the headline hungry press and gullible public going hog wild over an impostor. Some of the dialogue (ignoring one embarrassing speech by Davis using an onion as a visual aid) has the same myth-kicking satire of a classic Preston Sturges comedy, but the script (by the author of the similar but much more serious 'Unforgiven') is too often let down by the counterfeit screwball touches and typically glib style of director Stephen Frears. The perfect ending is also spoiled by at least ten added minutes of surplus resolution; just ignore everything after Hoffman and Davis finally confront each other during the climactic scene at the Drake Hotel.
