The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard

Plot synopsis:
Ben Selleck's car dealership, in Temecula, California, is failing and he is forced to hire a mercenary, Don Ready. They have 211 cars to sell over the 4th of July weekend. Don's team of Babs, Jibby, and Brent promise Ben that they will make the dealership a profit after the weekend.
On the first day the crowds gather outside for hot dogs and other gimmicks. Don notices that the naturally talented salesman, Blake, could be his son (he was in the town before and had a brief fling while there). The sales team sell the cars by any means necessary and finish the day selling 71 cars. Before they can leave the lot Stu and his son Paxton from the opposing dealership offer to purchase the lot. Since Paxton is marrying Ben's daughter, Ivy, he is trying to put his future father-in-law out of business. Paxton only wants practice space for his "man-band", Big Ups, and eventually wants to take them worldwide. Ben is about to finalize a deal with Stu but Don promises to sell every car on the lot.
The second day starts off poorly with a dishonest commercial that Ben is dying of testicular cancer. When it is time for Eric Bice, Bo Bice's brother to take the stage he backs out at the last minute and Don takes the stage. The crowd riots when they find out Don is an atrocious singer. Taking advantage of all the cameras on the lot from the riot, the team starts a sale for 20% off to the police.
Don is taking stock in his life when Ivy questions him about one of his jobs in Albuquerque. Don tells her that he killed his best friend and team DJ, McDermott (played in a flashback by Will Ferrell), by giving him a bag with sex toys instead of a parachute. Don was more focused on having sex with his customer than selling cars. He then reveals to Ivy that he is falling for her and it is all happening again. That night Ivy comes to Don's hotel room and they have sex.
Ivy reveals that it was a one-night stand and is not breaking up with Paxton. Don is furious and storms out yelling that he only trusts cars after what he's been done by Ivy. The team searches but cannot find Don, they get pumped up to sell the 105 cars left on the lot without him. While wandering the desert Don sees the deceased McDermott with two angels. McDermott tells Don that everything is about the team, people you love, and that he should get off the road and settle down. In the time it takes Don to get back to the dealership the team sells every car on the lot.
Don parachutes onto the lot but Stu and Paxton inform him the "bandit car" (an expensive prop that was used in the Smokey and the Bandit films) is not sold and the dealership is theirs. Don convinces Paxton to buy the bandit car, which saves the lot, and Paxton leaves Ivy to tour with his band. Don announces that he is going to get off the road so he can care for his friends and family more. Don marries Ivy and adopts Blake (despite the fact that Blake knows he is not, in fact, Don's son) but they get divorced two years later.

Tags: comedy, satire, storytelling, flashback

Review:
But was glad I had tried, because it allowed me to laugh out loud at one of the jokes in The Goods.) I am curious if there are older people (over the age of 40, let's say) out there who also dig the film.As for Pivens' performance, I thought it was weak in the dramatic parts, but this is a comedy, so no harm no foul, and I understand that the dramatic story is there because producers feel it's necessary.All the players were hilarious.
After reading so many bad reviews and angry critiques by many people who have only heard certain lines out of context and have not actually watched the entire film, I was surprised and thoroughly pleased to be laughing out loud throughout this entire movie.
It is a comedy with an ensemble cast of actors featured in numerous Ferrell/McKay movies with plenty of good-natured humorous satire of needless prejudices that will be familiar to anyone who has watched Chappelle's Show and was able to grasp the satire behind it.
I was concerned that it would be another letdown, but this movie far exceeded my expectations and I look forward to watching it again and noticing even more funny things because some of the funniest details are said immediately after another joke and may be missed because of laughter or are humorous small visual details.
This type of layered comedy is known from Anchorman, Caddyshack, Step Brothers, Super Troopers, and Chappelle's Show, so if you liked those then you will be able to appreciate all of the funny lines and jokes from the varied and great cast and all of the humorous details carefully interwoven into this film.
Oh sure, there's character development, sort of, where we see Don Ready (Jeremy Piven), super hot-shot car salesman and his crew of hot-shot car salesman, come to a small town to help a fledgling car dealership for one weekend to avoid getting bankrupt and/or taken over by the dastardly competition plus a "Man-Band" (over thirty boy band) headed by Ed Helms.
The rest of the movie's story focuses on this rag-tag group of characters and their one-track adventures, and Ready's whole "finding-himself" saga which includes facing the fact that he's an a-hole who wanders from town to town without any connections personally or acknowledging that he might have a son (who isn't really, by the way, another 'joke'), and the ultimate goal that you know is going to come around, with a twist or two perhaps.This is a true throw-a-dart-at-a-board comedy where the filmmaker and writers just keep the gags going and going on.
You can't go into this knowing what to expect even if you think you'd like 'this' kind of movie, meaning a movie with lots of (very) R-rated comedy and actors that those of us who see these movies recognize (Craig Robinson, ken Jeong, Helms, Rob Riggle).
Some may dispute if Rob Riggle playing a 10 year old man-child is funny (or the female salesman who keeps hitting on him) or if James Brolin's gay thing for another salesman is funny, or if Helms as a guy in a "Man-Band" going completely obvious is funny.Some of this, in fact, is.
This can be a problem sporadically in the film as well (one of the characters, for me, that had this was the WW2 veteran car salesman), but none so more prevalent than Piven.On the opposite side of this is Ving Rhames, who gives a surprisingly funny comic performance as a mack-daddy who's had sex with hundreds of women...
It seems like every week i'm saying there is a new "funniest movie of the year." "Funny People" is my current favorite but "The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard" is it's non-dramatic equivalent.First off this is a great role for Jeremy Piven, very much in Ari Gold-form as Don Ready, a car salesman-for-hire who travels around America with his crew helping out lackluster dealerships.
The car dealership owned by Ben Selleck (James Brolin) is in trouble, struggling with rag-tag salesman, poor sales returns, and as Babs (Kathryn Hahn), one part of Don's crew points out, the place looks like a "refugee camp for dirty men." Along with his other two sidekicks, Brent (David Koechner) and Jibby (Ving Rhames), Don must sell all the cars off the lot or the dealership faces being sold to Stu Harding (Alan Thicke), another more successful dealer.His son is Paxton Harding (Ed Helms), a late-30's man whose real dream is for his boy band to finally get off the ground.
Watching this was a reminiscence of an era that I'm still missing, where comedies really gave audiences some bang for their buck with jokes that will send you rip- roaring.What filmmakers like director Neal Brennan would reckon is funny, is the constant dropping of F-bombs and turning everything possible into a sexual innuendo, be it hitting on the gays, or treading so finely on pedophilia, which I suppose to him is meant to be funny with a female cougar scouring quite unsuccessfully a boy who's trapped in a man's body.The flimsy plot on which the laughs are built upon, involve a used car business founded by Ben Selleck (James Brolin), who has seen better days, and is now threatened with foreclosure.
Hence extreme times like this meant to engage an external, proved consultant, and that's Don Ready (Jeremy Piven) and his team of Jibby Newsome (Ving Rhames), Brent Gage (David Koechner) and Babs Merrick (Kathryn Hahn).Part of the fun here I suppose is how each character has to exorcise their personal demons and issues, especially with members of the Selleck family.
Sure Adam McKay and Will Ferrell are as listed Producers, and Mr Ferrell has another of his unending string of cameos, but the film has none of the charm or big laughs that those two far superior comedies offer.Jeremy Piven just can't carry a film ...
Here, I liked the movie best when Piven was not in a scene (which rarely happened).The good things about the film are the work of Bab's husband James Brolin, the interesting Kathryn Hahn, the raging Charles Napier, "10 yr old pituitary case" Rob Riggle, and Cameron Diaz lookalike Jordana Spiro.
Jeremy Pivin plays Don "The Goods" Ready, a "gun-for-hire" car salesman in this would-be triumphant comedy that falls flat.
I mean seriously, in one of the previews, the main character (Jeremy Piven/Don Ready) says this: "We all just participated in a hate crime let's get our story straight, He came at us with a samurai sword, a fire extinguisher, and Chinese throwing stars," in reference to beating up an Asian car salesman.
Boy was it a mistake of me and my friends wasting our money on a linear piece of garbage like this the only good part hint the 3 stars was the intro showing you the vet fighting customers other wise this film could have entertained a bunch of 10 year olds sneeking into a 15 movie.God do i want my money back for this piece of crapthere's lots of other great films out there but please avoid this stinker..
Along the same lines as Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Talladega Nights and King Pin.I dig the way Jeremy Piven acts and he comes along with many of the re-used actors in this kind of movie, Will Ferrell, David Koechner, Rob Riggle, Ed Helms and others.The movie is has a few funny parts and some outrageous, yeah right scenes.
Not only could he sell an ice cube to a South Park character in hell, he couldn't even get into the top 5 for its opening box office weekend.We have somewhat smooth talking Don (Piven) leading a sales team from town-to-town to reenergize failing car dealerships, and since you know he never thinks about settling down, you then know exactly where this movie is headed.He lands in a no-nothing town in California, falls for an already spoken for daughter and works the closeted father into selling all cars on the lot in order to save the family-run business.
In addition, the fully booked cast, most of the regulars from movies like The Hangover mostly stood around and looked like they were improvising everything since they basically had no script to go by.I will admit, there were a few small laughs – mostly with Ferrell's cameo, but with what could've been PIven's huge break-through into starring roles – this role was made for him!!
GREAT cast (in addition to the ones mentioned above), with some funny jokes, a solid concept, and great comedic timing (the latter which I expected, since Chappelle's Show, of which Brennan was the co-creator, was extremely good at that)so why didn't I stay laughing?
Piven is a good actor, but is better suited to roles that give off humor as a by-product; he is not a funnyman in the sense that you just place him center stage, let him babble, and watch amazingly-funny stuff roll out of his mouth, like Will Ferrell in Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy or Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby.
anyway back to the movie.I thought there were a couple of jokes that could have been cut from the film, like a joke about being 35 and having a facebook account - it seemed to be reaching a bit to far to be funny.In short, a great comedy with a lot of laugh out loud moments & an amazing selection of songs to fit the feel of this film.
Also, the fact that there are no extras on the DVD should clue you in to how everyone involved with this stinker would rather forget this movie than remember it.There are some laughs in the movie, Ed Helms is a bright spot, Will Ferrell's cameo is memorable, and there are some hilarious politically incorrect lines that Charles Napier's character (Dick Lewiston) delivers but the main flaw in this movie stems from the fact that I didn't want to root for Don Ready (Jeremy Piven) and his team of mercenary auto sellers.
But this film aims to be a fun comedy.The handful of good performances by the aforementioned solid cast save this from being a total waste of time but, not so much that you don't realize you've been sold a lemon by a sleazy used car salesman at the end of the movie..
It has a lot of sexual jokes that wouldn't be expected in a film about selling cars but in fact a great part of the fun came from them Some characters are priceless!
So, in my point of view, this film is good for the mentioned characters, some laughable jokes and some ironic criticism to the "world of sales", especially the one related to the car business; because plot's development is pretty average and the end is the one expected.
If you're an easy sell on that kind of humor "The Goods" is worth the time, but looking at it more critically, this movie is just trying to dress up used material so it can sell it like it's new.Jeremy Piven is the latest comedian after Will Ferrel and John C.
There's Brent Gage (David Koechner aka Champ Kind in "Anchorman"), the quasi normal guy who exists solely so the dealership's owner Mr. Selleck (James Brolin) can make awkward homosexual advances towards him, Jibby (Ving Rhames) who's had meaningless sex all his life and wants to "make love" to a woman and Babs (Kathryn Hahn), the horny sex-appeal saleswoman who battles both her lesbian desires and her sexual crush on the Selleck's 10-year-old son stuck in a man's body (Rob Riggle).That's not even the half of them, however.
Its nice to know we can see the always amusing Jeremy Piven in something other than an overrated HBO TV series.Don Ready, a great example of a really likable protagonist, is leader of a group of car salesmen; Baps (Kathryn Hahn), the foul mouth lady, Jibby (Ving Rhames) a tough guy in search of making love, and Brett (David Koechner), Don's assistant and back-up brains of the group.They are called to Selleck Motors, a car dealership suffering on 4th of July weekend.
David Koechner and Jeremy Piven give great appearances as well as good cameos like Will Ferrell and a funny scene from Ken Jeong.
Though it's definitely worth a watch.Starring: Jeremy Piven, Kathryn Hahn, Ving Rhames, David Koechner, Ed Helms, and Ken Jeong.
The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard stars Jeremy Piven as Don Ready, a character not all that different from Ari Gold who he plays on Entourage but maybe a little more over the top.
After Ready has his spiel and help sell 71 cars in the first day Stu Harding (Alan Thicke) and his son Paxton (Ed Helms) show up to make a deal with Selleck to buy his lot from him.
Trying to be a raunchy and crude comedy in the vein of "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," "Knocked Up" and "The Hangover," the newest Paramount Vantage release, "The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard," just manages to end up being raunchy and crude.Directed by Neal Brennan (in his feature film debut, although he has helmed several episodes of the "Dave Chappell Show"), "The Goods" tells the story of a failing used car dealership in Temecula, CA.
(I've actually been there) and the efforts of its owner, Ben Selleck (James Brolin) to save it by hiring a group of "mercenary" salespeople.These include Brent Gage (David Koechner, "Taladega Nights," "SNL"), Jibby Newsome (Ving Rhames, "Mission Impossible"), Babs Merrick (Kathryn Hahn, "Step Brothers," "Revolutionary Road") and the leader, David "The Goods" Ready (Jeremy Piven, "Old School," "Smoking Aces").Ready is cool, sure and super confident (he even talks a flight attendant into letting him smoke on board an airplane in flight).
It seems that Thicke's son, Paxton (Ed Helms, "The Hangover," "The Office") - who is part of a boy band and is dating Selleck's daughter, Ivy (Jordana Spiro, P.J. Franklin in the cable series, "My Boys") - needs a big space to rehearse his group in (a used car lot?!) Yes, there are F-Bombs aplenty, comic violence tossed about and the sex and sleaze are ratcheted up, but the film really only provides four or five solid laughs and a number of little guffaws.A small amount of unnecessary pathos is injected and the subplots - Newsome wants to find true love with a stripper, Ready feels guilty about the "Kirkie" and Merrick is horny for a 10-year-old boy (in the body of Rob Riggle, "The Hangover") - are not amusing in the least, and the last one is downright uncomfortable.One of the funniest sequences, however, concerns a crowd rioting when Eric Bice (brother of "American Idol" contestant, Bo Bice) fails to show up at a concert and Ready tries to take his place.Basically an updated, dirty version of 1980's "Used Cars" (with Kurt Russell and Jack Warden) with little of the humanity or hilarity of that picture.
There's too much unnecessary sex jokes, too much scattered comedy for us to really invest in these characters.If you want to see a good movie about selling things, rent "Glengarry Glen Ross"- an all-star cast playing sales people who must sell the most leads to keep themselves employed.
The only funny part of the movie involves two scenarios- one has a very old racist man trying to sell a car to a couple, and one has Will Ferrell falling to his death from an airplane.
Jeremy Piven stars in a film concerning a team of car liquidators who are brought in to help James Brolin's dealership sell 200 cars in three days.They tell me its a comedy.
The not always likable Jeremy Piven stars as used car fixer Don Ready summoned for a huge sell off event during fourth of July weekend in order to save the family run lot owned by Ben Selleck played by James Brolin.
Piven supposedly may have a long lost son working on the lot, but otherwise he's a womanizer who meets his match in Jordana Spiro as Ivy Selleck, daughter of Ben. As is usually the case in these kind of films, the gags/jokes are hit or miss, like the Will Ferrell cameo role (which seems to serve no other purpose besides Will looking at the audience and saying "hey audience, look, I'm Will Ferrell and I'm doing this cameo!).
Babs stops selling cars and goes to work at a boys counseling school where Peter is set to enroll.If this description of the plot doesn't dissuade you from wasting your time on "The Goods," then you may actually like this numb skull comedy..
The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard (2009): Dir: Neal Brennan / Cast: Jeremy Piven, Kathryn Hahn, David Koechner, Ving Rhames, James Brolin: Comedy about potential, which is something this film lacks.
THE GOODS: LIVE HARD, SELL HARD (2009) ***1/2 Jeremy Piven, Ving Rhames, James Brolin, David Koechner, Kathryn Hahn, Ed Helms, Jordana Spiro, Tony Hale, Ken Jeong, Rob Riggle, Alan Thicke, Charles Napier, Jonathan Sadwoski, Noureen DeWulf, Wendie Malick, Craig Robinson, Bryan Callen, Joey Kern, Kristen Schaal.
I mainly watched this because I like Jeremy Piven, Ving Rhames, Jordana Spiro, Kathryn Hahn, James Brolin, Charles Napier and of course Jonathan Sadowski...but overall the story and the writing disappointed me.
The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard is a raunchy comedy about Don Ready (Jeremy Piven), a car salesman who can talk anyone into buying any car or doing anything he wants them to do.
That said, Jeremy Piven is very good, and Ed Helms gets a lot of laughs as the daughter of Ben, Ivy's jerk boyfriend, Paxton who works with his dad (Alan Thicke) at a competing dealership.
I heard a lot of not so great things about the movie, but I loved the cast and it seemed like it could be funny.
Jeremy Piven, Ving Rhames, James Brolin, Kathryn Hahn, Ed Helms, and others star in The Goods.