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'Finding Amanda'

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BY JOHN ANDERSON | Special to Newsday

June 27, 2008

The broad message of director Peter Tolan's "Finding Amanda" is that a network TV producer could occupy the same moral plateau as a Las Vegas prostitute. While the likely response will be "duh," Matthew Broderick is understatedly funny as Taylor Peters, a writer-producer whose disastrous half-hour sitcom is driving him back to the things he loves best - drinking and playing the horses. When his wife (Maura Tierney) kicks him out, he attempts to redeem himself by finding and rescuing Amanda (Brittany Snow), their niece, who is said to have joined the ranks of the depraved in Vegas.

Amanda doesn't want to be rescued, though, and it's Taylor's struggles with his own demons and the seaminess of America's gambling mecca (this is certainly no tourist come-on) that provide most of what is a very darkly humorous film.

(R)

PLOT Nebbishy TV producer sets out to rescue niece-turned-hooker in Las Vegas

CAST Matthew Broderick, Brittany Snow, Maura Tierney.

LENGTH 1:30

PLAYING AT Sunshine Cinemas, Manhattan.

BOTTOM LINE Intriguing mix of mall-movie humor and seamy Vegas lowlife. As if Garry Marshall collaborated with Hubert Selby.