Delivery Man

COMEDY

Potency

6.75 out of 10 | Rental

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Rated: PG-13  Thematic elements, sexual content, some drug material, brief violence and language
Release Date: November 22, 2013
Runtime: 1 hour 45 minutes

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Director: Ken Scott
Writers: Ken Scott, Martin Petit
Cast: Vince Vaughn, Chris Pratt, Cobie Smulders, Bobby Moynihan, Adam Chanler-Berat, Britt Robertson, Jack Reynor

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SYNOPSIS:  An affable underachiever finds out he's fathered 533 children through anonymous donations to a fertility clinic 20 years ago. Now he must decide whether or not to come forward when 142 of them file a lawsuit to reveal his identity.

REVIEW: Writer and director Ken Scott takes his own 2011 film Starbuck and remakes it with American sweetheart Vince Vaughn. Scott did have help from co-writer Martin Petit the first go-around but seems to have found his own way this try.

David Wozniak (Vince Vaughn, The Internship) lives a carefree and responsibility free life as a meat delivery driver for his father's business. He owes money to the wrong people, can't seem to keep from getting parking tickets, and has all but abandoned his girlfriend Emma (Cobie Smoulders, The Avengers). When he learns that his sperm donating years ago has resulted in him fathering over 500 kids - and that over 100 of those offspring are petitioning to discover David's identity. He must make the impossible choice whether to reveal himself to the enquiring kids or stay anonymous no matter what. While deciding David has to juggle work, his newly pregnant girlfriend, and serving as a guardian angel for the kids he wants to be close to.

Vince Vaughn takes a more dramatic turn in Delivery Man. His wingman Owen Wilson is absent from the story, replaced by mediocre lawyer and best friend of twenty years Brett (Chris Pratt, Zero Dark Thirty). The normal silly hi-jinks are replaced by something more akin to a possible dramatic edge. Dealing with over one hundred kids who want to find out their sperm father's identity can be a logistical nightmare.

Unable to include all of the kids, Vaughn and his character Dave focus on just a few of them. From a barista who want to be an actor, to a girl at the end of her rope, to a handicapped young man living in a group home, the story tries to give a little slice of all the lives that David had created. Unfortunately some of the dramatic elements that come with telling these individual tales leads to one child left out by the end. Understanding that it is difficult to tell so many stories in a hundred minute film, some threads start and do not really end to satisfaction.

Delivery Man is a Vince Vaughn movie with dramatic potential, but the story really doesn't offer enough of either the drama or the company to know what it wants to be when it grows up. There are loose ends used strictly as a device to get to the next point of the story, Cobie Smulders is underused and forgotten through much of the film, and the brothers in the Wozniak family, including Tommy Moynahan, don't get enough screen time to really make a difference. Chris Pratt does the flick proud as his typical Parks and Recreation self, his character mugging and scratching his head throughout.
Delivery Man, based on the story Starbuck, could have been an utterly chaotic slapstick comedy or a straight heart tugging drama. Vince Vaughn does all he can to straddle and blur the line between them. At the end of the day Delivery Man is what you would expect from a father of over five hundred children - exhausted and confused.

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The Five-Year Engagement

Four Funerals and a Wedding

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Rated: R Sexual content and language throughout
Release Date: April 27, 2012
Runtime:  2 hrs 4 mins

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Director: Nicolas Stoller
Writers: Jason Segel, Nicolas Stoller
Cast: Jason Segel, Emily Blunt, Chris Pratt, Allison Brie, Mimi Kennedy, David Payer, Rhys Ifans, Kevin Hart

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SYNOPSIS: A year after they met, Tom Solomon proposes marriage to Violet Barnes. As they try to prepare for their wedding, obstacles keep getting the way of their engagement.

REVIEW: Nicolas Stoller has been busy as of late, directing films like Get Him to the Greek and Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and performing writing duties for films including Yes Man and The Muppets. Partnering again with writer and actor Jason Segel (The Muppets), they both share writing credits for The Five-Year Engagement, while Stoller helms the film behind the monitors. 

In San Francisco in New Year's Eve, one year after they first met, sous chef Tom Solomon (Jason Segel, The Muppets) clumsily proposes to his academic girlfriend Violet Barnes (Emily Blunt, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen). Now engaged, they start to plan their wedding. When Violet gets a 2-year post doc position at the University of Michigan Psychology Department run by Winton Childs (Rhys Ifans, Anonymous), Tom gives up his promising career to be with her near campus in Ann Arbor, as well as agreeing to postpone the wedding date until they get settled. One thing after another gets in the way of their wedding plans, forcing them to reschedule their reservations and reevaluate their relationship.

The Five-Year Engagement is a hilarious film with a sweet story along with it. Jason Segel has proven he can hang with the big boys with his comedy chops and writing skills. With The Muppets and Get Him to the Greek under his belt for his writing resume and CBS's How I Met Your Mother to hone his comedy chops, Segel is perched on the edge of romantic comedy stardom if The Five-Year Engagement does well. Emily Blunt, fresh off her romantic turn as Harriet in Salmon Fishing in the Yemen and Matt Damon's muse in The Adjustment Bureau, brings a gorgeous smile, a fine British accent, and her own sense of comedy and romance to her role as Violet. Segel and Blunt are center stage with all of the angst that wedding preparations can cause, but they are helped along the way by a  cadre of supporting cast that fill in the story nicely.Chris Pratt (Moneyball) plays Tom's goofball chef friend Alex who manages to say all the wrong and most inappropriate things in support of his friend. Violet's sister Suzie (Alison Brie, Scream 4) manages to beat Violet to the punch in most respects with funny results, and also manages to prepare a memorable engagement speech. Violet's post doc friends include masturbation obsessed Doug (Kevin Hart, Think Like A Man), gossipy Vaneetha (Mindy Kaling, No Strings Attached), and off-beat Ming (Randall Park, Larry Crowne) round out Violet's psychology ring under the tuteluge of Dr. Childs. Tom also has his own group of U of M friends, including sweater knitting Bill (Chris Parnell, 21 Jump Street) and sandwich shop pickle expert Tarquin (Brian Posehn, Sex Drive). Hart is a little understated compared to his Cedric role in Think Like A Man, Kaling is a clone of The Office's Kelly Kapoor, Parnell is a montage of several roles he has played in skits or other comedies, and Posehn is always a little weird. The real break-outs are Parks and Recreation's Chris Pratt recreating his moron role with great success, and Alison Brie tacking on an accent and adding great timing to her sisterly character. I guess Mad Men and Community have has a positive effect on her. And play special attention to her and Blunt's rendition of a coupe of Sesame Street characters.

In this tale, the comedy is better then the romance. Jason Segel knows how to work his way around the funny bone. Strange settings and props, including many parts of venison and the beast it comes from, make for silly situations. On the romantic side, Segel is indeed a capable actor but Blunt rules the roost with her smiles and skills. Segel and writer/director Stolling balance the dramatics and the funny digs in perfect harmony, with a slight leaning toward the gut-busting versus the eye-gushing.

The Five-Year Engagement is an obvious title for the Segel and Blunt film. It could have been called Four Funerals and a Wedding but I think that parody title was already taken. You will laugh out loud quite a bit, but may not shed the tear you want to for the typical romantic comedy. Overall, the story works, the actors excel at their craft, and the audience will be engaged for the 124 minute film. The time will not feel as long as a five-year engagement, but you wonder how it will ever work out in the end, if at all.

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WORTH: Matinee or Rental

Moneyball

The Romance of Baseball

Director: Bennett Miller

Writers: Steven Zaillian, Aaron Sorkin, Stan Chervin, Michael Lewis (book: "Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game")

Cast: Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Robin Wright, Chris Pratt, Stephen Bishop

SYNOPSIS: Billy Beane, General Manager of the Oakland A's, struggles to put together a baseball team on a budget, ultimately bucking the tried-and-true established tradition of recruiting baseball players by employing computer-generated analysis.

REVIEW: Bennett Miller, director of Capote from 2006, returns to the captain's chair to direct te new sports drama Moneyball. Based on the book "Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game" penned by Michael Lewis and brought to the big screen by Steven Zaillian (Scindler's List, Gangs of New York), Aaron Sorkin (A Few Good Men, The Social Network) from a story by Stan Chervin, the film follows the struggles of Major League Baseball's Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane and his struggles to field a competitive and competent baseball team with a monetary budget a fraction of the amount that successful winning teams have.

Centering around the General Manager of the Oakland A's from the end of the 2001 season where the A's lost the ALDS series to the Yankees, getting to the play-offs with stars like Jason Giambi, Jason Isringhausen, and Johnny Damon. After losing the series, big-market ball clubs pick off the A's premier stars with bigger paydays. Trying to rework his team, former player turned scout turned A's General Manager Billy Beane struggles to replace and rebuild due to the monetary cap of the small-market club. Where the New York Yankees have $142 million to spend on their players, Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) attempts to put a competitive team together with a 1/5th that amount. Realizing that the tried-and-true "five tools" method of scouting and recruiting isn't going to help him develop a winning franchise, he runs across Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), a Yale graduate with a economics degree providing player analysis for the Cleveland Indians, and starts prospecting for the 2002 season with players that are undervalued on paper according to Brand but contradicts all the scouting wisdom that had become the mainstay for recruiting.


For the novice or the sports ignorant, Billy Beane's quest for the Oakland A's to return to the post-season is illuminating and riveting. Can a team from the "...island of misfit toys..." complete and excel against powerhouse ball clubs? Will the fans, sports radio and the public turn against Beane because of his unorthodox decisions? Will Beane and Brand have the support of the A's ownership, the coach, the scouts and the players?


Brad Pitt is worthy of the role he embodies for Moneyball. With an easy smile that hides an uneasy major league ball player past, a failed marriage and a daughter he only wants the best for, Pitt's character is both fearless and fearful, filled with regret and desire to change the game for the better. Jonah Hill's Peter Brand statistics analyst is stoic and smart. His deadpan deliveries during interchanges with Beane get quite a few laughs, even while Hill plays the straight man. Philip Seymour Hoffman plays A's coach Art Howe like a lumbering bear, reluctant to work with Beane's new strategies while he tries to keep his own job and reputation above reproach. Chris Pratt (Parks and Recreations) joins as unsure first baseman Scott Hatteberg and Stephen Bishop rounds out the primary cast as over-the-hill unwanted veteran David Justice.


Not as epic as The Natural, silly as A League of their Own, or nostalgic as Field of Dreams, Moneyball is a grounded and interesting look at a real-life modern major league ballclub, looking at Beane and Brand as both innovators and madmen, daring to throw away decades of tradition surrounding America's Favorite Pastime. The aforementioned films serve to romanticize a sport that is engrained in our national consciousness, but Moneyball throws in a solid sliding pitch into the sports drama genre.

WORTH: Matinee or DVD