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    The Dilemma

    Reviewed by
    adamwatchesmovies@

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    "The Dilemma" is an attempt at blending comedy and drama that makes some very poor choices and ends up falling flat on its face. The film centres around an age-old question: if you find out someone is cheating on one of your friends, do you tell them? This film follows Ronny (played by Vince Vaughn), a sarcastic, funny guy with commitment issues that likes to take things easy and enjoy the simple things like a game of hockey or a drive in his car (so basically the same character Vaughn plays in all of his comedies) He's best friends with Nick (played by Kevin James) a brilliant but frequently stressed-out engine designer. Together the two make a sales pitch to Dodge: they're going to create an electric engine that sounds like an old muscle car. While working on the deal, a big issue comes up. Ronny catches Nick's wife Geneva (Winona Ryder) kissing a man named Zip (played by Channing Tatum) At first, it seems like a simple question of confronting Geneva and getting her to tell her husband their marriage is in serious trouble. Things get even more complicated when Ronny finds out some secrets about Nick and is met with hostility from more than one of his friends about the issue. On top of all that, he's also got a girlfriend (Beth, played by Jennifer Connelly) who is just waiting for him to propose to her and increasing difficulties with the Dodge deal.

    Just from the setup you can see where the trouble in this film begins. The dilemma present here isn't exactly what you would call good fuel for a comedy, but there's definite ways to make a solid drama out of it. It's true that there are both elements present in the film, but it feels like someone got the colour coding of the scenes wrong and everything that was supposed to be comedic ended up dramatic and vice versa. The comedic scenes are often embarrassingly out of place in the film, particularly when it comes to Vince Vaughn's character. In a film where mostly everyone acts like real people, getting defensive when being confronted and panicking at the idea of being exposed, he is a cartoon character that's getting into all kinds of hijinks and slapstick situations. Characters like Nick and Geneva are complex with serious flaws to them, adding to the difficulty of the situation and making the whole infidelity thing a giant grey area instead of a strict "she's cheating on him so she's wrong kind of thing". Ronny is the total opposite. This is the kind of movie that would have been over in 5 minutes if he actually talked to anyone but instead he comes up with huge, obvious and elaborate lies (which are filmed and shown on the screen for comedy) When confronted with blackmail, he doesn't do the logical thing like try to either set up the person that's trying to strong-arm him or confronting the other party immediately, he goes to the spy-shop to get an advanced camera so he can take incriminating pictures. Like a moron and just so we can get a "hilarious" follow-up scene he then forgets the camera at the scene of the incident. We then see him try to get the evidence back himself a day later, not thinking that maybe breaking into someone's house will have some serious consequences.

    The frustration you will feel while watching this movie is incredibly hard to describe. It's a comedy that's very rarely funny (Channing Tatum made laugh but he's not in much of the film) and drags on forever. This movie is nearly two hours long and feels padded out with lame characters and scenes that are inserted in to add "humour" to the plot. An example of an extra character that doesn't belong in the movie is Queen Latifah as Susan Warner. Her character's dialogue is all exposition or bad jokes ("lady wood? " and "I want to bang our brain? " what kind of dialogue is that? ) She's in roughly 3 scenes and is roughly on the screen for 15 minutes total. If you want an example of a scene of theoretical comedy that adds little to the plot and totally tanks how about the embarrassing scene where Vaughn ad-libs a horrendous toast during his girlfriend's parent's 40th anniversary party. The scene is obviously meant to show off Vaughn's talent at on-the-spot comedy instead of actually developing the characters or moving the plot because no one dares to interrupt the speech even though he only knows like 5 of the people there and it's truly dreadful. Scenes like this one and the clips of Ronny's lies being brought to life really make you feel like the film was a drama that needed some punching up by adding some jokes.

    The conclusion of the film is a real disaster too. The movie doesn't end up following through on its own setup and goes for a comical, goofy ending where all of Ronny's buffoonery catches up to him and where everything pretty much turns out alright for everyone involved. In the final scenes of the movie all of the characters just seems to forget how much of a creep Nick is despite some of the really reprehensible stuff he's been up to. Actually that's not entirely true. There is a reason everyone forgets the behaviour Nick has been displaying; it's because Geneva's personality completely changes during the conclusion. The whole movie builds up the fact that neither party in the Nick-Geneva relationship are actually the "bad guy". Because there's a hockey sub-plot and a story about the Dodge deal that needs to be wrapped up the writer needed to have Ronny and Nick be buddy-buddy in the end. Nick's wife turns into such a complete harpy that audiences are supposed to be distracted from the past behaviour of everyone else involved in the story and leave the theatre feeling good because of the way she ends up. It certainly didn't work for the people I was watching the movie with, who left infuriated instead.

    I also want to mention the embarrassingly tasteless scene of the sales pitch to Dodge in the beginning of the movie. The scene is clearly ad-libbed by Vaughn and his choice of words is… less than politically correct to say the least. His frequent use of the word "gay" to describe something undesirable and weak offended me and certainly didn't help me care if the character got the deal or not. In fact it even made me hate the people he was presenting the speech to. I expected them to throw the guy out of the building into a muddy puddle with a security guard saying "And STAY OUT!" but like every other scene where Nick is interacting inappropriately, everyone just gives him free range to do whatever he wants. I'd believe the behaviour displayed in "The Dilemma" better if it was set on Mars in the year 3011 than Chicago 2011.

    It's a comedy that isn't funny and ultimately doesn't really bring anything to the age-old discussion about what you should do in a tricky situation involving adultery either. Aside from some good performances and a few fun scenes with Channing Tatum, all you have to look forward to if you watch this movie is two hours of bad, cheesy slapstick that will make you cringe and wish you had chosen something better to watch. (Dvd, August 19, 2013)

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    adamwatchesmovies@  22.5.2016 age: 26-35 2,867 reviews

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