Sporadic, Stupid, Not Funny Enough

Rating: 4/10 (28 July 2011)

This movie has all the right ingredients to be an interesting and extremely funny comedy: excellent casting with Jason Bateman's sharp wit and Jennifer Aniston's comic timing complemented by Kevin Spacey playing what I saw as an over the top version of his Swimming with Sharks Buddy Ackerman, and a wish fulfilment plot line that we can all get fully behind. So the question given these ingredients why does the film fail so completely? I think the answer is simple: it just isn't funny enough. Don't get me wrong there are excellent moments where I found myself laughing out loud; there is one scene where Nick (Bateman) Dale (Charlie Day) and Kurt (Jason Sudeikis) break into a house which has some genuinely funny moments. However this is where we come back to that word "moments" - these hit you almost by surprise during the meandering storyline which becomes more stupid and predictable the further along in the movie we go; now I don't mind this if the laughs are still coming but in their absence the strange thing is you start to look more at the plot and with this film that is fatal. With a comparative film such as The Hangover the humour washes over the cracks of the storyline so that by the end you simply don't care that virtually none of the events were plausible; with this film I'm afraid the cracks sit their and gape at you. Another thing that annoys me is that Jennifer Aniston sets up the this wonderful character called Dr Julia - her horribleness is that she is a sex maniac who is harassing Dale to the point where she blackmails him into sleeping with her; however in the name of god knows what she gets sidelined (to be wedged back in here and there later on) in a plot which narrows down its focus to the two male horrible bosses. I'm not sure exactly why this is because it would have been great to have seen that side developed. Instead in the end you feel that because she (Jennifer Aniston) is a "hottie" the idea of actually killing her is not really going to be explored because she is "hot" - we don't need to think any more of it than that, just like Kurt who turns up to stake out her house to get information on her weaknesses we are supposed to simply think "yep, I'd probably just screw her as well" - and he does so. All this leaves you at the end feeling that this was a great idea for a movie but the one you've just watched doesn't live up to it.
So I would say watch the DVD when it comes out or go on a half price cinema day - but don't pay full price for this when you could go and watch Bridesmaids which is much funnier.