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The Big Bounce is passable entertainment, but it never lives up to its promise. George Armitage, who nailed Charles Willeford's down-and-dirty sardonic tone in the woefully underseen Miami Blues and found the right mood for the tricky screenplay of Grosse Point Blank, would seem to have a feel for this kind of darkly comic material, supplied by the redoubtable Elmore Leonard (and adapted by screenwriter Sebastian Gutierrez). The cast is impressive, with amiable goofball leading man Owen Wilson providing quirky energy and newcomer Sara Foster surprisingly effective as the surfer-girl femme fatale (though this is a softer version of the character in Leonard's novel). The scenery is plenty lush, but the film's narrative drive seems to get lost in the Hawaiian surf. The plot is weak by caper standards, and a strong supporting cast is pretty much wasted. Minor characters that need to be fleshed out in order to hold our interest, like Morgan Freeman's laid-back judge and Bebe Neuwirth's alcoholic rich man's wife, are held in check to provide "surprising" story payoffs that will likely leave viewers scratching their heads. Armitage is usually sure-handed with incidental music (think of the way "Spirit in the Sky" juices the opening of Miami Blues, or of the clever use of cheesy 1980s hits in Grosse Point Blank), but he makes a huge gaffe here in using the Isley Brothers' "It's Your Thing" in one scene, evoking Steven Soderbergh's far superior Leonard adaptation, Out of Sight. While The Big Bounce ambles along pleasantly enough, that unfortunate musical cue calls to mind how much better it could have been.