Bruce Willis skates through comically flatlined dog story 'Venice'

In "Once Upon a Time in Venice," tough guy Bruce Willis gets tied up, punched, knocked out, made up to look like a homely redhead and forced to ride a skateboard down public streets and into a crowded bar while buck naked.

Had the skateboard chase been quick or crisply edited, the smirking Willis and his agile, uncredited, naked stunt double might have generated some old-fashioned Blake Edwards fun.

But the segment runs long in a movie that already feels like a really bad, star-studded "Oceans 11" prequel which, like a first pancake, should have been thrown out.

In this low-budget, lowbrow action comedy with a faux Beach Boys soundtrack, Willis plays Steve Ford, the only private eye in Venice, California. (Sorry, the production's obvious low budget didn't allow shooting in the other Venice.)

Thomas Middleditch of "Silicon Valley" fame co-stars as John, Steve's would-be partner and the film's unbelievably unreliable narrator who pretends to be a sex addict to meet a woman at her group therapy session.

He and Steve get hired by Los Angeles landlord mogul "Lou the Jew" (Adam Goldberg) to identify and stop a mysterious graffiti artist (the "Banksy of Venice Beach" as someone calls him) who paints giant, pornographic pictures on apartment building walls, threatening an impending, lucrative deal.

But that's not the main plot. That kicks in when a dumb drug dealer named Spyder (Jason Momoa) dognaps Steve's beloved Jack Russell terrier Buddy, pet of Steve's niece (Emily Robinson) and sister (Famke Janssen).

A slumming John Goodman plays Steve's best pal, a grumpy, soon-to-be-divorced surf shop owner who leads a parade of cameos by actors who look as if they don't want to be in "Venice" a second longer than necessary.

Snarky Kal Penn owns an Indian-American convenience shop. David Arquette promises to get a band back together. Don't sneeze or you might miss Christopher McDonald behind a desk.

Maybe they owe big favors to director Mark Cullen, writer of the aptly titled "Cop Out"?

Leave it to John (who says he resembles a young Roger Daltry) to concisely summarize this comically flatlined movie: "Man, that was bad!"