"Blame it on the Bellboy" is another ensemble farce, revolving around a mixup of identities between three guests in a Venice hotel - real-estate buyer Dudley Moore, hitman Bryan Brown and politician Richard Griffiths.
They are sent off in the wrong directions by a bumbling bellboy, played by Bronson Pinchot with a weird accent. In fact, Pinchot seems to be making a career of comic characters with weird accents, demonstrated by his roles in "Second Sight," "Beverly Hills Cop," and TV's "Perfect Strangers."
Moore is mistaken for the hitman and becomes the target of a mobster; Brown thinks an innocent woman is his target; and Griffiths, through a computer dating service, thinks he's meeting his date-mate when real-estate agent Patsy Kensit approaches him.
What sabotages "Blame It On the Bellboy" is that so many gags are overplayed, the chaos is consistently out of control and there is a cruel edge to some of the jokes, especially the harsh violence toward Moore and the forced sexual tryst between Griffiths and Kensit.
Writer-director Mark Herman, with his first film, would like to deliver a throwback to the knockabout sex farces of old, but his touch is too heavy-handed and his jokes lack imagination.
"Blame It On the Bellboy" is rated PG-13 for a surprising amount of sadistic, graphic violence, as well as sex, profanity, vulgarity and some partial nudity.