james l . brooks , one of the developers of the simpsons and director of broadcast news , returns to the big screen with this entertaining , if slightly flawed comedy . 
nicholson plays melvin udall , probably the most horrible person ever on the screen . 
he's racist , homophobic , and never has a good word to say to anyone . 
so , nobody talks to him , except waitress carol conelly ( t . v 
sitcom star hunt , who was last seen in twister , 1996 ) . 
naturally , udall , conelly and gay neighbor simon bishop ( kinnear ) who nicholson hates , all hit it off in the end . 
like good will hunting ( 1997 ) and titanic ( 1997 ) , even though the outcome is completely obvious , as good as it gets is an enjoyable , funny and warm comedy . 
nicholson is hilarious as melvin , churning out insults with superb relish . 
only nicholson could get away with the lines that melvin delivers . 
hunt is also good as waitress carol , and easily rises to the challenge of nicholson . 
there's also ( thankfully ) a bit of chemistry between them . 
kinnear , as the gay neighbor , seems to have a slightly underwritten role , he's more of a plot convience than a character . 
although his performance is good , his character just seems to exist to help melvin and carol come together . 
in fact , the scene stealer is simon's dog , who is funnier than nicholson . 
but then again , pets are always cute on screen . 
providing solid support is cuba gooding , jnr ( jerry maguire , 1996 ) and yeardly smith ( who is the voice of lisa simpsons in the simpsons ) although gooding isn't as good as is character in maguire , he is still fun . 
he overacts a little , but not so much as to be annoying . 
smith is also good , although she has a fairly small role . 
even director lawrence kasdan ( body heat , 1981 ) makes an appearance as a doctor . 
but this is primarily nicholsons film , and every scene he's in , he's steals it . 
he's character is so hateful , though , it's amazing that anyone talks to him at all , especially carol . 
and this is the films main problem . 
it's totally unbelievable that carol would ever consider liking melvin . 
she doesn't fall in love with him naturally , the film forces her to fall in love with him . 
also , melvins character seems to go too nice , too quickly . 
i would doubt anyone with a character like melvins would be able to turn back to a nice , loving person . 
it would take a helluva long time , much longer than this film would like to make out . 
brooks direction is good , though , if a bit average , but he usually manages to get an emotion out of the audience . 
he handles the comedy scenes better than the sentimental ones ( he tends to pile on to much schmaltz ) but generally he's good . 
there's also a nice soundtrack by veteran composer hans zimmer . 
but , generally , as good as it gets achieves what it sets out to do , which is to make the audience feel good by the end of the movie . 
the movie is a bit overlong , but nicholson is such good fun that the running time passes by pretty quickly . 
overall , as good as it gets is a fun movie , even though it may be unbelivable , and certainly worth seeing ( if just for jack nicholsons performance . ) 
not quite as good as it gets ( pardon the bad joke ) , but still good fun .