The man is Kevin Caffery (Martin Lawrence), who has an eye for the finer things and puts it to use in his occupation as a thief. "What's the Worst That Could Happen?" is the story of the epic pissing contest that Kevin gets into with Max Fairbanks (Danny DeVito), a multimillionaire about to enter Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Catching Kevin breaking into his mansion, which is about to be auctioned, Max not only calls the cops but filches Kevin's lucky ring right off his finger, claiming it belongs to him and was part of the thief's intended swag. The arrest is no problem for Kevin. The ring is another story. It was a gift from his new girlfriend, Amber (Carmen Ejogo). And the revelation that it was taken by an intended mark who turned the tables on Kevin is just too irresistible to his cronies. So, finding himself a laughingstock, Kevin sets out to get the ring, and to rob Max of everything that isn't nailed down in the process.

"What's the Worst That Could Happen?" originated as one of the comic mysteries in Donald E. Westlake's Dortmunder series, which are probably the most entertaining shaggy-dog tales any mystery writer has come up with. Dortmunder is the thief as working stiff, the guy whose great plans never quite work out, and whose foolproof jobs are the gateway to increasingly complicated capers. You read the Dortmunder books and think, "This would make a hell of a movie." But Westlake's particular brand of humor -- ambling and full of malapropisms, casually tossed-off wiseass remarks and calm discussions of the most improbable situations -- is hellishly difficult to translate to the screen. Many have tried. By my count, Lawrence is the fourth or fifth actor to have played Dortmunder (in a group that also includes George C. Scott in "Bank Shot" and Robert Redford in "The Hot Rock," probably the funniest film made from a Westlake novel).

You can see all the difficulties of adapting Westlake in "What's the Worst That Could Happen?" You'd need an absolute master of offhand comic timing, of jokes that just slide by, someone who can deliver gags so that they land between the deadpan and the winking, someone who knows the difference between saying funny things and saying things funny, to fully capture Westlake's tone. (Think of an American Bill Forsyth and you're close.)

	What's the Worst That Could Happen? Directed by Sam Weisman Starring Martin Lawrence, Danny DeVito, John Leguizamo, Bernie Mac, Richard Schiff, Glenne Headly, Nora Dunn, Ana Gasteyer, Larry Miller, Lenny Clarke, Siobhan Fallon, William Fichtner Print story E-mail story

Most comedies build to a big climax. Dortmunder stories are more like the sounds you might get out of someone who's collected a bunch of party noisemakers and starts testing them out one after the other, repeating the same patterns and always adding a new one at the end. They're like a medley of "We're in the Money" and "One for My Baby (And One More for the Road)" played on a kazoo.

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