'The Goods - Live Hard, Sell Hard'
(Jeremy Piven, Ving Rhames, et al / DVD / R / 2009 / Paramount)
Overview: When asked to save a struggling auto dealership from bankruptcy, Jeremy Piven and his ragtag crew descend on a small California town to party and wreak havoc... and move some cars, in this outrageously funny comedy.
DVD: I'm so, so sorry (as I love Jeremy Piven in 'Entourage' - I mean, who doesn't?!), but I watched 'The Goods' last night (twice!!) and starred in mighty disbelief at how unfunny, forced, immature and pointless it was. It contains all the bad points of Judd Apatow/Will Ferrell movies and none of the good. I mean, Ferrell produced it, so he clearly has no touch for these things without Apatow's oversight.
The script is terrible. Toilet humor, racism, pathetic sex "jokes" and generally mindless grade-school-level gags make for an excruciating viewing experience. Piven does his best; he's a good sleazeball but there's zero subtlety in the script or the direction so his game effort still falls flat.
Each side character is poorly drawn at best. Ving Rhames is miscast and not even remotely funny, as with most of his fellow castmembers. 'Arrested Development's Tony Hale is one of the few glimmers of quality here, but hardly enough to save it. It's one of those flicks where you have to look away from the screen in embarrassment for the actors, and for yourself for watching.
It kept getting worse and worse until we looked at each other and said, "Enough of our lives have been wasted by this movie."
The end might explode in a dazzling shower of artistic redemption, but I will never know, as you couldn't make me watch this a third time with Malcolm McDowell's propped-open eyeballs! [KW] This is a Widescreen Presentation (1.85:1) enhanced for 16x9 TVs and comes with the Special Features of English, French and Spanish subtitles.
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