Opportunity Knocks is a comedy about a con man striking it big. Although occasional flashes of humor break up the tedium, the movie suffers from a shortage of suspense, originality, and depth. It depends on Dana Carvey (the church lady on Saturday Night Live) to carry the laughs and earn the sympathy of the audience. Yet Carvey's cute routines and pretty boy responses are ill-suited to the role of con man. His face lacks the grittiness he needs to survive in the criminal world which assaults him and the intelligence he needs to fake it as a corporate wheeler and dealer.

The movie begins with Eddie (Dana Carvey) and his thick-witted partner Lou (Todd Graff) blundering through a series of two-bit cons. During an attempted robbery of a posh estate, Eddie discovers that the housesitter has split for good. When Eddie inadvertently destroys a car and needs to escape the Mob, he gladly flees to the upper class retreat. There he can enjoy the rich life without work or worry. Just when he's beginning to feel at home, he's caught stepping out of the shower by some unexpected visitors. Mistaking him for the housesitter, the parents of the owner treat him to a country club feast, the keys to the car, and a few hundred smackers in loan money. Eddie develops an immediate criminal interest in their beautiful, intelligent, career-oriented daughter Annie (Julia Campbell). She treats Eddie like he's the vilest thing she's ever laid her big brown eyes on. Her icy response seems completely out of character with the warm treatment she bestows on her clinic patients and parents. You'll never guess what happens to this relationship.

Meanwhile, her father Milt (Robert Loggia) has fallen for Eddie, thinking he's a Harvard man with heart. The father goes to courting, finally nabbing Eddie for his firm. At the same time, Eddie is trying to woo Annie to get her father's money. Never mind that he's probably pulling in $100,000 a year with his new job. Thus the groundwork for the predictable plot is laid.

Although there is little that is fresh, the film has a few appealing moments. Carvey's George Bush imitation is a clever routine, successful in part because it fits nicely into the storyline. While an alleged secret service man guards his bathroom stall, "Bush" makes an unabashed advertising plug for the buyers to hear. Needless to say, the plug effectively boosts sales.

Unfortunately, most of the gags look like cheap imitations. The worst is a direct steal from the classic con film The Sting. Like The Sting's Western Union office scene, Eddie and his gang take over the city commissioner's office, his uncle and aunt posing as government officials. After shaking hands in the office, they slip their intended victim outside to discuss business before the real commissioner returns. In the classic version, there's genuine suspense. Will they get him out of the office in time? Will he fall for it? Yet in this version, there's no humor or suspense.

There's additional cinematic thievery as well. Let loose in the living room with a million dollar stereo, Carvey weakly imitates Tom Cruise's Risky Business solo dance. But while Cruise seems to have been captured by a hidden camera, allowing us a privileged view of his private fantasies, Carvey looks like he's hamming it up for us after consulting with his choreographer. He steals ideas from Big with similar results. Like Tom Hanks, Carvey tries to fake others into believing his credentials as a corporate player. How does he survive at his job all these weeks? Our brief glimpse into his corporate life is when he ushers the board members into the men's bathroom. From their cramped positions, two to a seat, he informs them that the best place to advertise is to the captive audience gazing at the stall's door. This insight earns him the undying admiration of his colleagues.

Though the movie looks like a pale imitation of finer films, and is punctuated by too few genuinely funny moments, it's greatest problem lies in the morale of the tale: that you can bypass hard work, education, and experience with bravado, criminality, and insincerity and win. Love justifies and forgives any crime, and cuteness wins over all. It was a tasteless and ultimately unsatisfying message, leaving me feeling conned out of my five bucks.