Struggling Hollywood film producer Charlie Berns is actively trying to commit suicide when his aspiring screenwriter nephew Lionel arrives from New Jersey interrupts him.

After he sees an article about powerful action-star African American Bobby Mason, a recent convert to Judaism, is seeking a role, Charlie agrees to make the film.

However, only after he converts the literate PBS-style script (that he did not read) into an action adventure Middle Eastern espionage film, Ben Disraeli: Freedom Fighter.

After some creative wrangling with studio big-wigs and feisty project developer Deidre Hearn, whom he is instantly attracted to, he gets them to commit to making the film without seeing the script.

Using financing that must stay in Prague, Charlie and Deidre manage to film Lionel's original movie there, keeping further casting and production in Europe so they do not get shut down.

The film Ben and Bill goes on to receive seven Golden Globe nominations, making Charlie and Deidre the newest power couple producers in Hollywood.

In his review in Variety, Peter Debruge said, "The characters seem to be doing all the laughing, while the general public has nothing to cling to but the horndog flirtation between mismatched leads William H. Macy and Meg Ryan - hardly ideal ingredients for mainstream success .

Elliott Gould gets laughs as the credit-hungry rabbi pulled in to consult on the film, although a few A-list celebrity cameos in the movie-star roles would have gone a long way toward completing the illusion.

"[2] Although Matt Prigge of the Philadelphia Weekly felt there was "nothing remotely original" about the film, he thought it "just happens to be sprightlier than most, zipping along from one familiar but well-deployed yuk to the next and anchored by the surprisingly winning team of Macy and Meg Ryan.

Yet it’s difficult to resist when the purely idiotic is openly mocked by a sure-footed cast of line readers led by William H. Macy .