There are many talented actors and actresses who remain relatively unknown despite logging one memorable, scene-stealing performance after another. Even though they may have more talent than household names like Kevin Costner and Sandra Bullock, these fine performers remain nameless to most moviegoers, who instead know them only by outrageous things their characters have done.

Take Jason Biggs. He's not recognized as being an up-and-coming comedic actor – he's the kid who fucked the pastry in American Pie. Mention the name Amanda Peet, and people shrug their shoulders. But if you say "the girl who took off her top in The Whole Nine Yards," everybody knows who you're talking about. Ditto for Jack Black - the fat guy who worked in the record store in High Fidelity. Steve Zahn doesn't even have a memorable moment, but has had roles in a bunch of terrific films, like Out of Sight, Happy, Texas and Hamlet.

Toss these actors into the same weakly written film, and you get Saving Silverman, a sporadically entertaining picture that will appeal to the Adam Sandler crowd. It's no coincidence, since director Dennis Dugan also helmed Sandler's Big Daddy and Happy Gilmore. The film's formula will seem familiar to viewers who have seen any comedy that the uptight crowd refers to as "appealing to the lowest common denominator." It goes a little something like this - sight gag, pratfall, dick joke, double-take, cleavage shot, repeat as (un)necessary.

Silverman's story focuses on three lifelong Seattle friends who, as shown in the first few minutes of the film, have gone from being nerdy kids to nerdy adults with kooky jobs. Darren Silverman (Biggs) is the entertainment director at a local nursing home. Buddies Wayne (Zahn) and J.D. (Black) are, respectively, a rodent exterminator and a Subway employee. The trio also perform in a Neil Diamond cover band, so it goes without saying that none of them are exactly chick magnets.

But that all changes when Darren meets Judith (Peet), a beautiful psychologist hell-bent on finding a naïve man who can be molded into her idea of perfection. She's a controlling bitch-on-wheels who forbids Darren from seeing his pals, and, to make matters worse, she doesn't put out. Wayne and J.D. know they need to do something drastic to save Darren from the devious dish, and hatch a plan to kidnap Judith, stage her death and fix Darren up with his old flame (Amanda Detmer), a shapely, soon-to-be-nun from a family of circus performers. Seriously.

There are a lot of legitimately funny moments in Silverman, but, as usual, you can see most of them in trailer. There are also appearances by Neil Diamond and Kyle Gass, the latter of whom is half of Black's acoustic heavy metal duo, Tenacious D. Also worth noting is the name of Zahn's character (he played Wayne Wayne Wayne, Jr. in Happy, Texas) and the fact that the film mentions Hannibal Lecter (Silverman opens the same weekend as Hannibal).

As far as the acting performances go, you'd think these stars would be above this kind of baloney (you'd never see Philip Seymour Hoffman making a film like this). They're all very likeable actors, and they probably add much more life to their characters than what was written in the silly script (written by Hank Nelken and Greg DePaul). While their talent is largely wasted here, it's scary to think about how bad Silverman would have been without them.

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