Okay, here's the deal. I can deal with pretty much any sort of foolishness going on around me. No matter what the problem, I can cope. C'mon, I'm a doctor. I can diagnose a heart murmur in you with your two rugrats swingin' on my stethoscope, singing "Pop Goes the Weasle." But, my patience wears a might thin when I hear somebody make a bold statement, then get all bent out of straight when they're proven wrong.

Yet, it is with Weejun planted firmly in cakehole that I come before you, gentle reader, and admit that I'm apt to make the same mistake on many an occasion. I have a knack for braggadocio and big talk. I'm the Randy "Macho Man" Savage of the medical set. It's burned me for countless lawyer fees and buckets of alimony checks. One time, after watching George Hamilton in the biopic Evel Knievel, I swore to my friends I could jump the Chattahoochee River in my Ford pickup truck. Needless to say, the ambitious claim was somewhat varnished by a bottle of Commander Cuervo's Magic Tonic, and when all was said and done, I ended up nursing a knoggin' of bruises on the bank, while said pickup floated down the river toward the Gulf of Mexico.

And, friends and neighbors, a little while back, I predicted that a certain movie would be a stink bomb upon its release this summer. I've been proven wrong. My apologies go out to my TV hero, Cosmo Kramer, and his real life alter-ego, Michael Richards, because Trial and Error is a kickin' piece of comedy, easy enough to take a sweetheart to but funny enough to be this year's "sneak in the back door surprise," like Kingpin was last year..

Here, we get Jeff Daniels as Charles Tuttle, a lawyer who has everything rocking along according to Hoyle - he's got a good place in his law firm, and he's about to marry his way into a partnership with his boss's daughter, played by Alexandra Wentworth. The only thing he hasn't counted on is his lifelong best friend, an out-of-work actor named Richard Reitti (Richards). Just before the wedding, the daddy-in-law-to-be sends Charles to a small town in Nevada to settle a mail fraud case for a worthless distant cousin.

Richard shows up with a road-worthy bachelor party for his best pal, and, well, let's just say the party is a success. In no shape to stand up on his own, let alone make a court appearance, Charles gives the task over to Richard, who figures he can play the part and help out his buddy. But, as trials tend to do, the one-day stint stretches into days, and Richard is up against it in an attempt to save his buddy's career.

If any of this sounds a little bit familiar, look to the director for your answer. Director Jonathan Lynn also helmed another courtroom farce called My Cousin Vinny, and that one happened to scam into an Oscar® for Marisa Tomei. That sleeper scored highly on the laugh-o-meter. This one, though, is not as much a "fish-out-of-water" story as it is an "actor's nightmare."

I guess the pundits will wait before declaring Michael Richards capable of holding his own as a screen lead, but, truthfully, he earned that respect from me with his role in the underseen Unstrung Heroes. Here, he keeps the Kramerisms to a minimum, using it only for accents here and there. This performance brings back memories of his finer moments from the old TV show "Fridays," where he was the shining point of ABC's knock-off of "Saturday Night Live." He was playing ten different parts a week, all of them bizarre and most of them funny. Blend all of those together into one, you get Kramer. Pick out the finest moments, you get Richard Rietti.

Jeff Daniels trots out his stock-in-trade these days - - as the befuddled foil for anything and everything loony around him. He is a great reactor, and still remains the only person to steal a movie from Jim Carrey. We also get good work from Rip Torn (from TV's "Larry Sanders") as the cousin on trial. The Ripper grabs a scene or two just by sitting there, trying desperately to look innocent. Austin Pendleton, the master of underacting, plays a shortfused judge with as much gusto as the late Fred Gwynne did in Vinny.

This movie has only two faults. None of the female characters are fleshed out to a point where they matter much. Wentworth is a stereotypical rich girl. The other two characters, a waitress that Charles semi-falls for (Charlize Theron), and the opposing attorney that Richard drools over (Jessica Steen), are as one-dimensional as Blue Horse notebook paper. A little more work on the femmes, and we might have seen a screwball comedy in the manner of Preston Sturges or George Cukor.

The other fault is a simple one. The movie gets tired about halfway through. The story seems like it's pausing a while to gather its breath for the final act. Everything slows down and grinds a while before the energy picks up again for the finish.

A welcome no-brainer in a summer that promises to be full of thoughtful science fiction and slap-your-face action, Trial and Error is a surprise that pays off. One can only hope that Michael Richards makes a few more wise decisions and steers clear of the "Seinfeld" formula parts that are sure to come his way. If not, he'll be guilty of wasting a promising day in court.