Gorden-Levitt should hang up his directing hat...an atrocious excuse for an "art-house" film.

Rating: 3/10 (31 December 2013)

I was sceptical from the moment I saw the trailer for this. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a very talented actor but something about the trailer said to me it could be a bizarre attempt to be "unique" and "artsy." It was exactly that. To classify this as a comedy would seem wrong because it isn't even a little bit funny and is actually more disturbing and uncomfortable than anything. This was an excuse to be raunchy and disgusting and worst of all it barely made sense. The ending was excruciating, there wasn't a single good character in the entire film and the only reason I am scoring it a 3 instead of a 0 is because I actually did laugh for some reason a couple of times and I hung in there hoping that at some point this character would redeem himself or discover the error of his ways but none of that happens. This is a ridiculous, over the top, sex fuelled joke and not a good joke. It shouldn't surprise me that critics have raved about this and try as I might I can't find anything that they would find remotely impressive about this. Gordon-Levitt is a great talent and I can't figure out what about this made him think it was a good idea.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays triple duty as writer, director and star. His pompous, disgusting, sex addicted character is simply deplorable. I haven't seen a character I disliked this much since Cameron Diaz in Bad Teacher. There is nothing redeemable about him. His New York accent is good but he is completely sleazy and this is by far his worst performance. Not to be outdone his romantic lead (one of them anyways) is played by Scarlett Johansson. She is trash and straight out of a bad SNL skit about New Jersey housewives. Her accent is so over the top and she is ridiculous. She is a satire of a New York woman and I don't think she's supposed to be. Their chemistry is actually decent (another reason this film doesn't get a huge zero) but it doesn't matter because the story is so bad. I adore Tony Danza, he's such a talented and charismatic guy but he throws all that out the window to play the foul mouthed and equally disgusting father to Gordon-Levitt. I was literally disturbed watching nice guy Tony belt out "F" words like a sailor. He did reflect the family tree of Gordon-Levitt well because both were horrible people and characters. Julianne Moore already has strikes against her because I have never liked her. This movie proves why as she pointless plays an older woman trying to subtly seduce Gordon-Levitt and teach him the true meaning of intimacy. They are bizarre together and gross to be honest. Their story line makes no sense and ends on such a stupid note. Fortunately for the rest of the supporting cast they have such small roles that they are actually tolerable because they aren't given enough time to become irritating.
I wish everyone saw this film in the same light because it would ensure that Gordon-Levitt would know he's a terrible director and an even worse writer and stick with what he's good at. If only there was just something redeemable in this story but I can't express enough how little there is here for anyone to enjoy. It isn't entertaining in the least, its depressing and disgusting. Now of course immediately people who want to argue with me will call me a prude and I'm not at all. I can handle just about anything screen IF its a good film or at least a film with purpose and this is neither. I pray I never have to sit through a portion of this again because it was simply awful. In my books this will easily sit in the top three worse movies of 2013. Take my word and skip it no matter how much you like anyone in it. 3/10