By not trying too hard, this remake of a dumb movie has got spring in its step. The bounce is on us.

It's Wilson who's the score here. Quick, scruffy and completely at ease, he takes on Jack's let-it-ride charms and foibles as if he were tossing a Frisbee with friends, and it's impossible to watch him without wanting in on the game.

Like the frosty tropical drinks the people keep sipping here, it's refreshing and icy-cool, a sinful pleasure mixed by experts.

Wilson is the main reason to see The Big Bounce, where he's perfect as a reasonably smart guy who often seems to have no idea what he's getting into. The other reasons are a solid supporting cast.

It gets wackier as it goes, starting with Charlie Sheen cast against type as a guy who's getting no sex and turns down the chance. Bebe Neuwirth has some funny scenes as a lush.

There's some entertainment value, but the production as a whole is unfocused.

When the general pleasantness of the atmosphere and the cleverness of the screenplay don't carry the movie, Wilson does -- at least until a hurried, confounding finale that reveals its casualness as sloppiness.

It's too loose and casual, all too willing to trade the writer's trademark wit and literary mischief for slapstick comedy.

It’s sexy, offbeat fun for the most part, but it’s way too laid-back for its own good and, in the end, obstinately refuses to be anything more than the sum of its highly promising parts.

This is one of those capers doomed to unravel in comic chaos, but it finally plays less like a con gone wrong than a long, lazy, insubstantial shaggy dog story coasting on nothing but charm.

The movie doesn't work. It meanders and drifts and riffs.

The best Elmore Leonard adaptations ("Jackie Brown," "Out of Sight") play behind the beat, and although The Big Bounce isn't top-shelf Dutch, the film finds its own pace.

Breezy, sleazy and a little bit wheezy, The Big Bounce combines a short running time, a portrait of island-life corruption, and a retro surf-and-scam plot. Throw in a vintage, funky-soul soundtrack and you have the ingredients of ever so many bad television shows.

At 80 minutes, it feels truncated and abandoned -- a sketch of a comic thriller rather than the real thing.