Saving Silverman

Darren Silverman, Wayne Lefessier and J.D. McNugent have been close friends since childhood, sharing a taste for Neil Diamond and a place in a cover band of their own. Their routine falls apart when Darren takes up with Judith, a psychologist whose controlling manner pulls him away from the group and, eventually, from the band. Convinced he is making a mistake, Wayne and J.D. scheme to break the couple up. They decide to abduct Judith and hold her while they steer Darren back toward Sandy, the high school girlfriend he never got over, who is preparing to enter a convent within days. Their plan goes wrong in ways they did not anticipate, not least because their captive proves more than capable of turning the situation against them.

Saving Silverman was directed by Dennis Dugan, the fifth of the fourteen features he directed, following Big Daddy and preceding National Security. The screenplay is by Hank Nelken and Greg DePaul, and Neal H. Moritz produced. Steve Zahn, Jack Black and Jason Biggs play Wayne, J.D. and Darren, with Amanda Peet as Judith, Amanda Detmer as Sandy and R. Lee Ermey as a coach.

The film was released in February 2001 and runs 90 minutes. Made for about 22 million dollars, it returned roughly 19 million worldwide. Opinion has been modest across the board: audiences give it 5.9 on IMDb from 46,000 votes and 5.8 on TMDB from 653 votes, while critics rated it 4.5 out of 10 across 102 reviews, a lower figure than either audience score.