Tim Allen’s directorial debut—doesn’t that say it all? If not, I might have a few more words to describe how I felt before, during, and after watching Crazy on the Outside.

I have a bias toward Tim Allen. I liked Big Trouble, Joe Somebody, and Home Improvement. Hell, they could have done a spin-off of Tool Time and I would have taken the time to tune in for thirty minutes, once a week.  In fact, Crazy on the Outside, felt a little bit like an extended television special.

This movie details the life of Tommy (Tim Allen) after he is released from prison and comes home to live with his sister (Sigourney Weaver). Of course, he has a lot to contend with on the outside. His sister has fabricated a slew of lies that are usually reserved for the most pathological and sociopathic deviants, yet she manages to tell them with such a genuine decency and sympathetic lightness that you can’t help but want to squeeze her cheeks and giver her a “your so damn cute” slap on the ass. Cheeks are cheeks, right?

In fact, Tommy can owe most of his thanks and misfortune to his well-intentioned sister. After all, she tells the resident grandmother that Tommy has been in France for the past three years, instead of a state correctional facility. You can only imagine what sort of exaggerated madness this produces.

This movie is eccentric and cute and over the top. J.K. Simmons plays Sigourney Weaver’s disapproving, wise-cracking, libido-engorged husband. Julie Bowen is Tommy’s old love interest and Ray Liotta even acts as Tommy’s old crime buddy. Really, is Ray Liotta ever not associated with some form of syndicated crime anymore? He might not be a mobster in this movie, but he makes a colossal fortune off of pirated movies.

This movie did remind me a lot of Big Trouble. It is a comedy, but I would call it more entertaining than funny. Perhaps humorous is the right word. Even when things go completely wrong or sour in this movie, you can’t help but not worry. Even though Tommy is dating his parole officer, sleeping with his ex, and cavorting with crime again, the stakes just feel pleasantly low. Tim Allen has always had this effect on me. A bomb could be about to explode ten feet away from him and a bus packed with seeing-eye dogs, and I would just smile and shrug my shoulders. It’s not that I can’t take him seriously, it’s just that he emits some sort of low-level, comedic fog that envelopes everything in a ten-block radius.

My only qualm with this movie is that it felt rushed. It seemed like the climax and resolution all happened in the last ten minutes. If anything, Tim should have extended it by another half-hour. I could have used more bumbling ex-con dialogue and Sigourney Weaver screen time.