3 out of 5

Director: Frank Oz

What About Bob? is pretty much an epic comedy, straddling the silly and silly-serious Bill Murray roles and splashing it into a somewhat fair representation of neuroses and doctor/patient relationships. But its excesses and unavoidable “all ends well” ending take it down a notch from the impressive ramp up. Murray is Bob, patient from hell, who immediately bonds to and sticks with his psychiatrists, to such extent that he’s (perhaps) chased several professionals out of the biz. One exiting-the-practice doctor foists Bob onto Dr. Marvin – Richard Dreyfuss – who, about to publish a book and get interviewed on The Today Show while on vacation with his family – is ready to take on the challenge. …Until Bob follows him on vacation, until Bob isn’t leaving him alone, ransacking every moment of every day. The performances really sell this, as does a script that allows for Bill to play up his personas pacedly and limits Dreyfuss’s freakouts to select moments, and Frank Oz’s experience with comedic staging really helps keep things feeling legit, and not just like another stupid comedy. But the script has nowhere to go, the tricky edge between threatening and amusing it treads initially slips into comedy illogic, throttling toward a quick happy ending that really brings everything down a notch.