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A trade show organized in a little hotel in Wichita is the chance to put in one room three men representing three different perspectives on the concept of life. Larry - played by Kevin Spacey - is cynical, pragmatic, foul-mouthed, and seems to thinks only about the profit, both work and life can bring. Phil - played Danny DeVito - is a middle-aged man who thinks he already lived his life and now he's alone, depressed and wondering whether to embark on a new road and a new life or kill himself. Bob - played by Peter Facinelli - is a young Baptist that lives according to religious teachings, apparently innocent and fragile.
With these assumptions, the director John Swanbeck weaves a work that retains its theatrical structure, in fact this film is adapted from a play by Roger Rueff, who also worked on the screenplay. Almost an all-in-one-place where these characters discuss the biggest issues about life: love, infidelity, success, hypocrisy, religion, loneliness, death. With non-stop dialogues these issues are adressed without never trivialize or become melodramatic, using a bit of black humor that is there but it's not ostentatious. This is due not only to a writing both simple and effective, but also thanks to the extraordinary Spacey and DeVito, who give substance and credibility to their characters, so natural to make fiction seem as real as reality. While Peter Facinelli is a little flat in his role of a young man who finds out that the strict parameters of his life are actually a fence and that to preach is to sell, no matter if it's a religion or an industrial lubricant.
In the architecture of the film, the plot is almost non-existent and the character that gives name to the title, that Dick "Kahuna" Fuller, is only an idea of success and a few images from behind, a goal to reach. He's important, but he's not everything. So he's put in the background comparing to their discussions, in an ending credit using the famous essay Wear Sunscreen - written by Mary Schmich and published in the Chicago Tribune as a column in 1997 - in the musical version by Baz Luhrmann with the voice of Lee Perry. An essay that seems summarize the entire clue of this underrated film.
