What would you do if you found out that your best friend's wife was having an affair? That's Vince Vaughn's "dilemma" in this movie (I'm going to refer to him as Vince, b/c his character's name is Ronny, and let's be honest - it doesn't fit at all). I'm a huge fan of Vince. I celebrate his entire catalog, from Swingers (my favorite) to Clay Pigeons (weird) to Couple's Retreat (paycheck). And for me, he's the reason to see this movie. Vince and Kevin James are partners in a car engine making business (or something - you can ignore that entire plot line b/c it's nonsense. Kevin James as a genius engineer? No thanks. Queen Latifah as a consultant with creepy sexual metaphors? More realistic, but triple no thanks.), and they're best friends. (One non-surprise: Kevin James likes to dance and isn't very good at it! We've never seen that before, have we?) James is happily married (it seems) to Winona Ryder and Vaughn is with long-time girlfriend Jennifer Connelly.
Very early in the movie Vaughn learns that James' wife is cheating on him (with admittedly hilarious Channing Tatum) and confronts her. Through a series of blackmails, amateur spy operations, and other slapstick we learn that each person in the threesome has a skeleton or two that they don't want brought out of the closet. This is where the movie takes a strange turn - it stops being a buddy comedy and becomes a much darker relationship/morality play. Vaughn struggles with whether to tell James about his wife's wandering eye, while also trying to understand James' own philanders (he like happy ending at local massage parlor). It's easy to sympathize with him as he tries to process the fact that his "heroes" are both living relationship lies. And I give the movie credit for not romanticizing or glorifying the affair or the massage parlor. As the stress builds, Vaughn dives into his rambling, funny man schtick with a long, uncomfortable toast at his girlfriend's parent's 40th anniversary party. Finally, everything comes to a head when an intervention is planned for Vaughn (all of his weird reactions and creepy stalking made people think he was gambling again). The ending wraps up nicely without being trite (again, ignore the Kevin James as genius engineer part).
I personally find Vaughn's wild ramblings hilarious, so I wanted to like this movie. And I appreciate that they tried to make the actual "dilemma" into a real dilemma without minimizing the impact of an affair. The casting was appropriate as well because I think by now Winona Ryder has reached the petty crimes Tyson Zone (see Bill Simmons wiki for explanation) and she plays it to the hilt here. However, there was so much other nonsense going on in the movie (Vaughn's gambling past, the car engine meetings, Queen Latifah), that it had a hard time getting the engine started. Either it should have been a comedy a la Couple's Retreat, or it should have been a drama and really explored the emotional impact of marital unfaithfulness with occasionally funny lines. The second option is probably beyond this cast's limitations (I'm looking at you, Paul Blart, Mall Cop), although Connelly was very good as Vaughn's patient girlfriend.
No comments:
Post a Comment