Murray, Elephant Take Act on Road in Buddy Film ‘Life’

There’s an actor’s adage about never working with kids or animals, and it might also have taken into account Bill Murray, a scene-stealer of the first rank, whose George Sanders-meets-Joe E. Brown screen persona also makes him a fourth-wall straddler: His characters generally hover somewhere between movie and audience, fully conscious of one and derisive of the other. Or vice versa.

In “Larger Than Life,” in which he plays opposite a very large animal indeed, the dynamics have been altered, and to everyone’s benefit. As Jack Corcoran, a motivational speaker who addresses such august groups as the American Motion Upholstery Assn., Murray’s in no position to be smarmy.

He’s closer at times to his neurotic “What About Bob?” character than he’s been in years. And when Jack inherits his late father’s circus elephant--which he then has to transport cross-country--it’s possible to feel something like sympathy for both Corcoran and Murray, because they bear the indignity of the situation with such surprising good nature.

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The plot’s a lot lighter than Vera, our engaging pachyderm, and “Larger Than Life” is basically a buddy/road movie--complete with animal comedy and interspecies bonding. For all the traveling, the movie doesn’t go many places we haven’t seen before. But Murray is careful not to step on Vera’s toes. And she shows him the same courtesy.

Jack has believed all his life that his father died before he was born, while saving a child from drowning. Or so he was told by his mother (a very funny and almost unrecognizable Anita Gillette), a control freak whose progeny should be a lot more dysfunctional than Jack.

When he gets a telegram informing him of his father’s actual death, there’s a bit of recrimination, but mostly wry reflection: Dad was a circus clown, a small-timer. Jack, something of small-timer himself, seems to understand why Mom would deprive him of such a father.

Jack’s suddenly got a lot of problems. He’s being billed $35,000 in damages from the lawyer (Harve Presnell) who’s been harboring Vera. He has to decide whether to take the unwieldy beast to Mo (Janeane Garofalo), an acerbic animal researcher who wants to send Vera to Sri Lanka as part of a breeding project, or to Terry (Linda Fiorentino), a whiskey-voiced circus owner who not only can get Jack out of his financial fix, but might be interesting to meet. In any event, both destinies are a continent away.

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Murray dominates the movie--he always does--but there’s also a rather distracting bit of business from Matthew McConaughey as Tip, long-distance trucker and obsessive conspiracy theorist, whom Jack dupes into giving him and Vera a lift (and then, when he finds out, spends the rest of the movie trying to get revenge).

McConaughey is frantic and funny, but he’s a sideshow attraction. As bright as Roy Blount Jr.’s script is, though, it did need to do something other than follow Vera and Jack, and McConaughey does such a non-star-turn as Tip that the movie becomes fascinating in its contrariness.

Murray must feel particularly comfortable with director Howard Franklin (they co-directed “Quick Change” together) and he should: Their collaboration brings out the actor’s generosity, and he’s more engaging than he’s been in years. He may, in the future, even consider co-starring with children.

* MPAA rating: PG, for mild language and innuendo. Times guidelines: a few double-entendre but otherwise inoffensive.

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‘Larger Than Life’

Bill Murray: Jack Corcoran

Janeane Garofalo: Mo

Linda Fiorentino: Terry

Pat Hingle: Vernon

Matthew McConaughey: Tip

Anita Gillette: Mom

A Trilogy Entertainment Group production, released by United Artists Pictures. Director Howard Franklin. Producers Richard B. Lewis, John Watson, Pen Densham. Screenplay by Roy Blount Jr. Cinematographer Elliot Davis. Editor Sidney Levin. Costumes Jane Robinson. Music Miles Goodman. Production design Marcia Hinds-Johnson. Art director Bo Johnson. Running time: 1 hour, 33 minutes.

* In general release throughout Southern California.