Unfinished Business

I'm a big Vince Vaughn fan. I think his part in Wedding Crashers is criminally perfect, one of the best comedic performances I can think of, well, ever. His selections since that infamous 2005 comedy have been pretty hit or miss, including most recently his much-maligned part in HBO's second season of True Detective. But while the source material isn't always good, I typically like Vaughn. So with some nerves, I dove into 2015's Unfinished Business, a comedy that got lousy reviews and did awful in the box office. And away we go!

Dan Trunkman (Vaughn) is at a crossroads in his career. Told he will be getting a 5 percent commission decrease at work on business deals, Dan decides to up and quit, vowing to start his own company in the same field from the ground up. Two employees follow him out the door, Timothy McWinters (Tom Wilkinson), a longtime employee in his late 60's who's let go because he's too old, and Mike Pancake (Dave Franco), a young interviewee who actually wasn't employed but just interviewed for a position. Dan swears he'll get something going....that never really happens. Not right away at least as a year later, Dan is still trying to close his first business deal, a prominent one hanging in the air just waiting to get the handshake done. The problem? His former employer is similarly tracking the same deal, and the only way to get it done is for Dan, Tim and Mike to head to Berlin to wrap things up. Let the international hijinks begin.

Well....the trailer looked pretty funny. That's good, right? 'Unfinished' earned an impressive 11% at Rotten Tomatoes and barely cracked $10 million at the box office. I thought the premise sounded funny, the cast was pretty talented and was looking for some good laughs, so not a whole lot of demands. From director Ken Scott and writer Steve Conrad, 'Unfinished' just doesn't have enough laughs. The story is all over the place, trying to be a hard R-rated comedy while also mixing in some family drama that is dead on arrival. Pick one or the other and stick with it. If you pick wrong, so be it but at least you're not trying to appeal to all sides. It rarely ends well going with both options, and even at just 91 minutes, this comedy gets a tad sluggish along the way.

There are haters and/or doubters out there, but I love Vince Vaughn. He's at his best dealing out lightning-quick jabs, almost always delivered in a subtle, underplayed fashion that leaves you burned later because that insult was so damn good. Playing father and businessman Dan, Vaughn -- like the script -- is kind of trapped in no man's land. His character just seems irritated a lot, mostly because everyone around him is an idiot. He gets his usual rants and ravings in and has a good running bit about being part of a hotel art display, but too often he's left to play the straight man to the antics and shenanigans all around him. His selections in films have left something to desire over the last 10 years, but when given the opportunity, he shows he can still kill it with an impeccable line delivery. I just wish there had been more of that.

As if his co-workers weren't bad enough (more on that to come), Vaughn's character and the movie across the board is undone by the family drama inserted into a comedy that preached an R-rating and looked to be raunchy, nasty and dirty. No such luck, or not enough, or no balance among it all. You choose. There's his loving wife (June Diane Raphael), his bullied, overweight son (Britton Sear) and his daughter (Ella Anderson) who stands up for her older brother. It is a plot line with no life, no energy and would seem more appropriate for a Full House episode.

So Tom Wilkinson and Dave Franco as sidekicks...yeah, that sounds good. But that damn script again has its way. Franco delivers one of the most uncomfortable parts I've ever seen, his Mike Pancake (Yes, that's his name and the joke is beaten to death) a pretty slow young man who's innocent, naive, looking to get laid and, well, seemingly mentally challenged but all at the expense of one joke after another. It is painful. PAINFUL. Wilkinson is a pro but his character is similarly poorly-written, an older, married man who's looking to get a divorce and have some crazy European sex too as long as he's got the chance. So....yeah, that's not good. In tiny snippets, the trio does have good chemistry but they get buried under a sea of repetitive jokes that are short on actual laughs.

Rounding out the cast but given little to do beyond being cliched cardboard cutouts, look for Sienna Miller, James Marsden and Nick Frost as assorted other characters that do stuff.

Just a big disappointment overall. There was some potential for a halfway decent comedy, but that never really comes around. Not enough laughs and too many dumb twists and awkwardly forced family issues to be an enjoyable comedy.

Unfinished Business (2015): * 1/2 /****

Lee Daniels' The Butler

The names of the U.S. Presidents are instantly recognizable, names synonymous with the history of the United States, especially that building where the president leaves, whatever it's called. The White House I think? What about all the people who work at the White House, who keep the place running? And no, it's not just the nameless/faceless individuals who get killed during terrorist attacks in movies like White House Down and Olympus Has Fallen. I kid of course as we jump into 2013's Lee Daniels' The Butler, the true story of one of the White House's longtime butlers.

Growing up as a young boy with his sharecropping family in 1926 Georgia, Cecil Gaines has his outlook on life forever impacted when his father is shot down by a white man, the land owner where the family work, after raping his mother. Cecil is taught to be a house worker, a butler, and grows up finding jobs here and there working as a butler for the rich and well-to-do, eventually ending up at a Washington D.C. hotel. It isn't long before a grown-up Cecil (Forest Whitaker) has created quite a reputation for himself, earning an interview and eventually a full-time job at the White House, working with the sizable staff to make sure the President's home is a crisp, clean operation on a day-to-day basis. It's the late 1950s though, America heading into a turbulent time in its young history. Cecil has an inside look at America's involvement at home and internationally, all the while trying to raise a family with his wife, Gloria (Oprah Winfrey).  

This wasn't a movie I was dying to see, but I was nonetheless curious, even intrigued to see it. Loosely based on the true story of Eugene Allen, 'Butler' is director Lee Daniels' second film since his 2009 movie, Precious, that really put him on the map. It received pretty solid reviews and was a surprise success in theaters, earning over $167 million. I'm not really sure what to take away from it overall. I can appreciate what the message is going for, what it's trying to stand for and say about American history, yet that said, I didn't especially like it. What it's trying to do is admirable. What it accomplishes? Still mulling that over. Some of that can be chalked up to the script which tries to accomplish a ton in a 132-minute movie.

What I didn't question was Forest Whitaker in the lead role. Playing Cecil Gaines, Whitaker is our window as an audience into a whole lot of American history. We see his mindset, his frustrations, his motivations, his friendships, his rivalries, all of it. It isn't a flashy part, far from it, just a very straightforward, effective part. Whitaker's Cecil is a family man who wants to provide for that family, especially his wife, Gloria, struggling with alcoholism as she misses Cecil, his oldest son, Lewis (David Oyelowo, a good performance with some odd moments as a 37-year old playing a 15-year old), who dives headfirst into the civil rights movement, and his youngest son, Charlie (Elijah Kelley). His narration as a lead characters gets to be a little heavy-handed at times, but that's the script and not on Whitaker's shoulders. A very solid performance for Whitaker, a man trying to get by and live in some extremely turbulent times.

Beyond the family though, the supporting cast is mostly a long list of historical characters and bit parts that aren't around long enough to resonate. We meet a handful of Presidents including Dwight Eisenhower (Robin Williams), John F. Kennedy (James Marsden), Lyndon B. Johnson (Liev Schreiber), Richard Nixon (John Cusack) and Ronald Reagan (Alan Rickman), even meeting Nancy Reagan (Jane Fonda). These little episodes are pretty cool, but they're also gone as quick as they started. Because of that pacing issue, these scenes, appearances and story developments aren't as effective as they could and should have been. In storytelling technique, 'Butler' reminded me of the classic Forrest Gump, bouncing around to a lot of stories, a lot of key moments in American history, the story giving us a window into those moments. Where Forrest Gump blended the humor and drama though, 'Butler' stays on the dramatic path, and it wore on me. This can be a heavy, dark movie to get through at times.

Give the movie credit. It tries to do a lot. Ultimately though, I felt like it tries to do too much. A story focusing on Cecil's 30-plus year career at the White House would have been fascinating in itself. The same for a man trying to care for his family through the turbulence of the Civil Rights movement, into Vietnam and beyond. Doing both ends up making things too bouncy to the point neither story gets the attention it deserves. Much time is spent with Oyelowo's efforts in the Civil Rights movement, Cecil and Gloria worried and angry back home. Moments that feel like they should resonate well and carry the movie feel rushed, not letting those moments breathe. Much like the recent The Monuments Men, this feels like a story that would have been better suited to a miniseries. The effort is admirable, the execution tolerable. Moments like Cecil interacting with his fellow butlers (Cuba Gooding Jr. and Lenny Kravitz) ended up resonating more with me than most of the far-more dramatic scenes. Also look for Terrence Howard , Mariah Carey, Alex Pettyfer, Vanessa Redgrave in odd, out of place parts.

That's the biggest issue. It doesn't pick a route and stick with it. Moments that work among portions of story that drift too much, kinda a necessity with a story that covers six decades in a man's life. I also resented something from the final scene, a written, on-screen message thanking all the men and women that have helped gain "our freedom." As a white individual, this message hit me the wrong way, and I admit I may be over-analyzing. Is this a movie meant solely for an African-American audience? Should I not be watching this movie? It's a mixed bag in the end, a generally interesting movie that ultimately doesn't live up to its potential.

Lee Daniels' The Butler (2013): ** 1/2 /****

2 Guns

I love a good crime thriller. Don't you? You can decide how dark one should be, how action-packed, even how funny it is. Maybe all of the above even. If there was ever a decade that helped put the crime thriller on the map, it was the 1970s. Watching 2013's 2 Guns -- which I liked a lot -- I felt almost like it was a tribute film, a buddy crime thriller reminiscent of so many good 1970s thrillers.

Low-level criminals Bobby Beans (Denzel Washington) and Michael 'Stig' Stigman (Mark Wahlberg) have been working together, providing odds and ends for a drug cartel for almost a year now. When a deal with cartel kingpin Papi Greco (Edward James Olmos) doesn't go quite as planned, Bobby goes along with Stig's plan that he's been brewing about for months. Greco keeps a ridiculous amount of money as the Tres Cruces bank, somewhere around $3 million. Bobby and Stig are both keeping a secret from each other though, Bobby an undercover D.E.A. agent, Stig an undercover agent with Navy Intelligence. With backing from their supervisors, they pull off the robbery but get far more than they expected. Someone is setting them up. There isn't $3 million in the bank, and it doesn't belong to Greco. There's $43 million, and its powerful owner (Bill Paxton) wants it back at all costs.

It was hard not to like this movie. From director Baltasar Kormakur (who worked with Wahlberg on Contraband), 'Guns' is based off a graphic novel of the same name. It received mixed reviews last summer, but audiences seemed to like it, piling up a $131 million box office. The appeal is obvious, a buddy flick along the U.S./Mexico border with drug cartels, shootouts, corrupt government agencies, some cool car chases, and two very likable leads. Watching the DVD special features, writer Blake Masters clearly is a fan of the genre, mentioning Sam Peckinpah and Butch and Sundance as influences. The graphic novel author, Steven Grant, is the same way, a huge fan of where this genre has come from. Above all else, this is a really fun movie. It's content to be fun too, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Before I figured out what the story was about, my initial reaction was.....come on, do I really need to spell it out? It's Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg, two of my favorite actors, working together!! How can that go wrong? I submit that IT CANNOT. That's the beauty of films like this. You get two or three or four actors/actresses, hand them a script and let them go. These are fun parts that Washington and Wahlberg clearly had some fun bringing to life. Buddy/road movies like this have a perfection in following their formula. Two guys working together, not quite trusting each other but they don't have any other options, and everyone is against them. Their personalities are different -- Bobby quieter, smooth and charming, Stig a motor-mouthed, likable tough guy -- but really? They're not so different. Similar backgrounds, similar loyalties when it comes to getting the job done.

It doesn't hurt that both Washington and Wahlberg are two very likable actors on-screen. Nowhere is that more evident than their dialogue together. These are fast-paced, lightning-quick delivered scenes that certainly reflect two guys who've spent too much time together doing shady deals for drug cartels. The opening scene has Stig in a diner trying to order breakfast for Bobby, Bobby correcting everything that's said and then arguing about why the other one was so very wrong. It's a formula that's used a handful of times in some contagiously funny scenes, Stig trying to convince Bobby that they're actually friends, Bobby stubborn as ever in opening up some. Just a fun to watch and listen to chemistry that gives a humorous edge to the crime aspect of the story.

As for the rest of the cast, they're there to keep us guessing. Who's good? Who's bad? Who's got some tricks up their sleeve? Olmos is having some fun as Papi Greco, smooth and slimy, always ready to turn on anyone for a payday. Paula Patton gets the eye candy role (the topless eye candy, very essential to the story) as Deb, Bobby's quasi-girlfriend and contact officer within the D.E.A., Robert John Burke as Jessup, their commanding officer. Paxton gets to ham it up as Earl, the man who wants his money back, greasy hair, thin mustache and quirky to a T. James Marsden is good too as Quince, Stig's commanding officer within Navy Intelligence trying to put together a hugely successful case. Even Fred Ward makes a quick appearance as a Navy Admiral who may be able to help Stig. Definitely some fun, cool parts.

I just liked this movie, plain and simple. It reminded me of everything from Charley Varrick (robbing mafia money) to The Outfit (low level hoods) to Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (the border setting). There is absolutely nothing wrong with a movie wanting to be entertaining with absolutely no other intentions. By the time the story builds to a showdown at Greco's Mexican villa, it's just too perfect. About 28 different sides in a glorious shootout with a whole lot of money on the line. It's hard not to like movies about this. A buddy/road movie with tones of film noir, 1970s crime thrillers and that oh so perfect pulpy feel, how can you lose?

2 Guns (2013): ***/****

Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues

So for anyone who lives under a rock, the sequel to 2004's Anchorman hit theaters recently, Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues, raking in some solid if not huge numbers. It's a daunting task making an unnecessary sequel that follows an original film that is considered by many -- myself as well -- to be a comedy classic. Oh, and it's been nine years since the original was released? This sequel isn't the most timely of follow-ups, but director Adam McKay and star and fellow writer Will Ferrell waited until they could devote the right amount of time to actually writing the follow-up. Is it worth seeking out? You bet.

Having left San Diego and Channel 4 behind him, legendary news anchor Ron Burgundy (Ferrell) is living the high life in New York City, co-anchoring the nightly news with his wife, Veronica Corningstone (Christine Applegate). Well, he was living the high life. Called in thinking he's getting a promotion to a national network, Ron finds himself out of a job when Veronica is promoted instead. He's in a bad place now only to receive another job offer, a new news station that will be on television 24 hours a day. Ron is able to assemble his old news team, Brian Fantana (Paul Rudd), Champ Kind (David Koechner) and Brick Tamland (Steve Carell), and heads to New York City to rebuild his reputation. The news world has changed though, and Ron and Co. must adjust. Can they manage it?

There are certain movies where plot descriptions are beyond unnecessary. This is one of them. Do you like Ron Burgundy? Did you like Anchorman? If you said yes to either of those questions, you're going to head out and see this movie, story be damned. Though a sequel had been rumored for years, it finally came to fruition this past year when McKay and Ferrell revealed they had been working on a script, really devoting the time that script deserved to get it to theaters. Some nine years since the original was released, this isn't the most timely of sequels, but it's one that audiences have been looking forward to. We've been carpet-bombed for several months now with ads and appearances from Ferrell as Burgundy, the movie even under-performing some in theaters. If you read nothing else from this review, read this. If you liked the original, you'll like this one. Is it as good? No, but that would be almost impossible to do.

Instead, it uses the similar formula while adding some new wrinkles to keep things fresh and funny. How do they manage? Well, as dumb as the humor may be at times, it's also got some really smart (and funny) moments. Assigned to the graveyard shift on the new 24-hours news network, Ron and the team start to think out of the box. What do audiences want to see? Praise for America, sports highlights of home runs, big touchdowns and ferocious slam dunks, footage of cute animals doing goofy things and anything and everything sexy. Yes, Ron Burgundy can see into the future. Surprise, surprise, the ratings go through the roof, audiences eating up the new approach to the news. There is a subtle smartness here, Ron insisting on more graphics on-screen, showing a car chase live on-air and guessing who's driving and what's going on, even a countdown of the greatest vaginas of the 20th Century. Okay, maybe they're not all smart, but they're funny.

My worry was that the cast would turn their characters into caricatures of themselves, even more so than they already are, but thankfully we avoid that. It's fun to see Ron's development as he starts to realize maybe he's not the great newscaster he thought he was. The story gets pretty ridiculous in terms of a character arc -- really going off the beaten track in the final act -- but above all else, it's for laughs. Single Ron is separated from his wife, but still wants to be close to his son, Walter (Judah Nelson), deals with Veronica's new boyfriend, Gary (Greg Kinnear), a psychiatrist he believes can read his mind, gets semi-controversial with an interracial relationship with his new boss (Meagan Good), plays some jazz flute while ice skating, and eventually, even must fight back from being blind. Yes, you read that right. It's ridiculous. The entire movie is. It commits to being both equal parts really stupid and really smart. Leading that charge is Will Ferrell as Ron Burgundy, again stealing the show.

The best moments have Ron and the reassembled news team up to their usual hijinks, providing the movie's funniest moments. Finding out what Brian, Champ and Brick have been up to is priceless, a recruiting montage providing some great laughs in a scene you'd expect out of a men on a mission movie, not a screwball comedy. The quartet just has impeccable chemistry, each of the three supporting players given their chance to shine. You like the characters, like their shenanigans and can't help but laughs. Also look for James Marsden as Jack Lime, an established star in the news world who goes up against Ron as a new co-worker, Kristen Wiig as Chani, a secretary at the new station who has a budding romance with the equally odd Brick, and even Harrison Ford (yes, Harrison Ford) as Mack Tannen, a legendary newscaster. It's a ridiculously talented comedic cast.

SPOILERS I'm going to mention a couple scenes here -- one more than the other -- that features some good surprises and twists as the movie develops. Stop reading if you don't want to know. SPOILERS Both scenes are updates of iconic scenes from the original, the first being Brian Fantana's epic collection of condoms, one explanation after another bringing the house down, a nice update on his Sex Panther scene. The highlight though is a ridiculously over the top update of the Newscaster Fight (watch it HERE). The star power is nuts, the ante upped in every way possible. Ron and his team must fight the BBC (Sacha Baron Cohen), entertainment reporters (Tina Fey and Amy Poehler), ESPN (Will Smith), MTV (Kanye West), and the History Channel (Liam Neeson), accompanied by the ghost of Confederate general Stonewall Jackson (John C. Reilly). Oh, and Kirsten Dunst keys up the fight as the Maiden of the Clouds. And the Minotaur is fighting with the History Channel. It is truly nuts, completely ridiculous, and it works so, so well.

If there's a weakness here, it's that at 119 minutes, Anchorman 2 is a tad long. Some bits just work better than others. Ron and Co. driving in a Winnebago...well, cruise control driving, is inspired. A later montage of the team building up their new reputation is perfect, Ron and Brian at one point smoking crack on live TV. Other bits aren't as good. I'm looking at you Steve Carell and Kristen Wiig in some truly painful scenes. For the most part though, it works, one scene more nuts than the last. It's not on the level of the original, but it sure is funny. Enjoy it.

Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (2013): ***/****

Sex Drive

If we listen to everything movies teach us, teenagers apparently like to have sex and aspire to have as much sex as humanly possible. So I hear, I could be wrong. But with that premise, we've gotten a lot -- a lot -- of teen sex comedies, some better than others. It's a sub-genre all to itself, one that audiences are quite familiar with. In other words, you've got to do something new/surprising to be effective. Take 2008's Sex Drive, a flick that seems pretty been there, done that in its raunchiness. Brace yourself though....it's good, really good.

Having just graduated high school, 18-year old Ian (Josh Zuckerman) is a virgin and trying his best to lose that virginity. He has a crush on his longtime friend Felicia (Amanda Crew), but she seems to see him as nothing more than a good friend she can talk to about anything and everything. Ian is also talking to a girl from Kentucky, Ms. Tasty, online although he's pretending to be a muscle-bound football player. One night, Ms. Tasty tells Ian he should come visit her, and because he drove all that way, she'll have sex with him. Ian is wary of driving all that way, but his ladies man friend Lance (Clark Duke) convinces him otherwise. They "borrow" Ian's brother classic 1969 GTO and hit the road, but Felicia tags along -- even if she doesn't know the real intention of the road trip. Chicago to Knoxville, Tennessee? What could go wrong?

With movies like Superbad and the American Pie series (among countless others), the teen sex comedy is nothing new for audiences. 'Drive' is actually based off a novel by Andy Behrens (a Yahoo Sports writer), and I for one can say I was very surprised to hear that a sex comedy was based off a novel. Reviews are solid for Behrens' novel though with director Sean Anders obviously amping things up in his flick. There are touches that feel too familiar, but the teen sex comedy road trip buddy flick is just that, familiar. Ian, Lance and Felicia run into all sorts of eccentric horny people and various craziness on the road, but you knew that going in. None of this is intended as a negative or a dig at the movie. It's all very funny, the laughs treading that fine line between awfully stupid and just goofy that is funny.

Through all the sex jokes and general raunchiness, the heart of this flick is in the characters. The best example I can come up with is Superbad where we (well, I did) liked the main characters, making the hijinks they get into more fun to watch. That's especially the case with our teenage trio -- in the film at least -- as they steal a classic car and head south. Zuckerman is really good as Ian, your typical average high schooler who leans toward the nerdy side. Sometimes it's a little exaggerated, but 'Drive' gets the awkwardness of high school right on all levels. Duke is a scene-stealer as Lance, a chubby, pretty normal looking guy who has nonetheless turned himself into a ladies man with his ultra-confidence. Mostly though, he's a good friend to Ian, genuinely looking out for him. Crew is solid too as Felicia, the girl of Ian's dreams who may or may not like him too. Uh-oh, didn't see that coming!

Following the genre formula, we do meet some rather zany personalities along the way. 'Drive' doesn't have much in the way of star power, but Anders and John Morris do a really good job writing a screenplay off Behrens' novel, especially throwing a long line of kooky supporting characters at the viewer. Let's start with James Marsden as Rex, Ian's older brother who's a gearhead and convinced his little bro is gay. When his car gets stolen, he's understandably a little upset. Seth Green is another scene-stealer as Ezekiel, an Amish mechanic who can't pass up a good chance to lay some sarcasm down. Alice Greczyn is Mary, an Amish girl who takes a liking to Lance and vice versa, Katrina Bowden is the girl of Ian's sex dreams, Ms. Tasty, Charlie McDermott and Mark L. Young as Andy and Randy, two motor-mouthed teenagers who are always on the lookout for a hook-up, Michael Cudlitz as a pissed-off pursuer on the highway, and David Koechner as a wayward hitchhiker.

There's no point in overanalyzing this one. It's from a familiar sub-genre, but it does plenty to distance itself from the pack. Different characters and situations should seem familiar. If you've seen any other teen sex comedy, you've seen some of the predecessors to this one. The humor can be pretty raunchy -- especially the unrated version -- and there's random bits of nudity sprinkled in throughout the movie. I liked it a lot though. It is goofy from beginning to end, but the characters are at least remotely believable and sympathetic, and the laughs are there throughout. Definitely give this one a try.

Sex Drive (2008): ***/****