Ron Howard leaps back into comedy directing Vince Vaughn and Kevin James--sounds like a winner--where Vaughn sees James' wife kissing someone else and can't make a decision on his next move because the two are best friends and business partners. We expected to like it but found it uneven. Howard's comedies have been genius (Night Shift (1982), Splash (1984), Gung Ho (1986), Parenthood (1989), Edtv (1999)), and his dramas brilliant (Cocoon (1985), The Paper (1994), Cinderella Man (2005), Frost/Nixon, and A Beautiful Mind (2001), which won him two Oscars, just to name my favorites in both categories). Recently, on an episode of the Sundance Channel series Iconoclasts Howard took us behind the scenes for a few shots from this very movie. He was really proud of it. I guess he was just off his game. Or perhaps it was screenwriter Allan Loeb (the predictable The Switch and unfortunate Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, though I liked 21 (2008)). Vaughn is versatile enough for both comedy and drama (my faves: the hilarious Swingers (1996), The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997), the intense drama Return to Paradise (1998), Clay Pigeons (1998), Made (2001), Thumbsucker (2005), Be Cool (2005), Wedding Crashers (2005), The Break-Up (2006), and Four Christmases). I didn't see Kevin James' TV work, but he's a funny enough guy. Winona Ryder (after I wrote about her in The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, she had a small part in Star Trek and a pivotal role in Black Swan) and Jennifer Connelly (I picked my faves in He's Just Not That Into You) are too angry and earnest, respectively, to carry the comedic tone. The always dependable Queen Latifah has a couple of funny scenes with a resolution that just completely falls flat.
We did enjoy the soundtrack (listen to some of the songs here and read the list here), the predictably high production values (shot entirely in the Chicago metro area), and had a few laughs here and there. We didn't hate it but we sure didn't love it. Sorry, Opie!
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