Normally, this would be the kind of movie I would throw on my Netflix Queue and then when it came towards the top of the Queue I would probably knock it back down for a while before finally letting it come to me. I love me some Jeremy Piven, but it was not really something I needed to see. Then, my Regal Club Card spit out a free ticket for me after purchasing a ticket to see Julie and Julia. The free tickets are good for a while but, I like to use mine pretty quickly because, let's face it, I prefer to see movies on opening weekend and this free ticket is not valid opening weekend, so I always use it for some movie I might not otherwise see. So, those are the expectations I had: none.
Don Ready(Piven) was born to sell. When he was a kid he convinced another kid to trade his bike wheel bike for Don's bouncing ball. Don is a slick talker and a guy who can close. He is the owner of a company of 4 that travels the country helping car dealerships sell their cars in a crunch. His team consists of Jibby(Ving Rhames) a man who has never made love to a woman (He has lots of sex, but has never made love), Brent Gage(David Koechner) the money man who can get anyone approved and Babs(Katherine Hahn), a big breasted woman with the mouth like a guy. The crew is called to Temicula Ca, to help Selleck motors sell all 204 cars off their lot over 4th of July weekend. Ben Selleck(James Brolin) is a desperate man trying to hold on to his company, when a rival (Alan Thicke, Yes that Alan Thicke) wants to buy him out. Don feels himself falling for Sellecks daughter, Ivy (The super adorable Jordana Spiro), but he cannot find it himself to love because of some tragedy that happened about a year ago in another town, at another dealership that has left Don crippled emotionally.
The Goods is about as mixed a bag of laughs that a movie can be. There are truly hilarious bits and just atrocious bits. There is no real cohesive feeling throughout the movie because it is really just a collection of bits. Among the bits that do not work are jokes where Rob Riggle is playing a 10 year old boy with a gland problem has him looking like a full grown adult that Babs is very keen on having sex with. Then there is a running gag about Daddy Selleck wanting to have a gay rendezvous with Brent Gage. There is the hardened old racist/misogynist who cannot speak without swearing and Ving Rhames quest to make love, only to find that making love is boring and sex is better when you need a safe word. I believe Rhames' safe word was "blueberries", but I could be wrong.
Now there are bits that very much work. My favorite involved Ed Helms as Ivy's fiance whose dream is to have his boy-band, Big Ups, becoming the next Backstreet Boys because in his words "Backstreet Boys came along and revolutionized music." I was worried that the boy band jokes would be stale, but it actually felt nostalgic and fresh and Ed Helms is just so good at playing an entitled asshole, that it works. My second favorite running joke was Craig Robinson as a DJ that goes by DJ Request, but every time someone requested something he would play something that was on the complete opposite end of the musical spectrum because no one tells him how to do his job. The final stuff that really worked for me involved a cameo by Will Ferrell. I normally do not like that guy, but his three scenes were really quite funny, especially his first one.
No one is better at playing a fast talking douche bag than Jeremy Piven, but he is unfortunately at the center of some awkward moments. All of the possibly serious moments in the movie walk this odd line between trying to be comically over the top and depressing, and Piven does his best to walk that line, but it is just bad. After finding out some depressing news Piven loses it, but I think he was trying to go over the top on purpose but it came off just looking like really bad acting. I do not want to play Piven because he is better than that, but the tone is just all off. Now, the silly premise for the tragedy that is haunting Don affords the movie an out from being serious in any moment, but for a movie that is all about selling, it never sells us that Don Ready can really be sincere and therefore him getting the girl at the end is just a silly movie conceit.
The Goods would not have been worth my money, but since I saw it for free, I was okay with it. I got some laughs out of it, including a few pretty hearty laughs. I got my quota of laughing at deeply offensive racist jokes and misogynistic jokes. I was bummed that Ken Jeong and Toly Hale were grossly underused given how funny both those men can be, but I think that is a big part of the problem. The writers and director are trying so hard to fill the movie with the biggest gags, or stupidest jokes because they do they not really know what they are doing. To a certain extent The Goods come off as one of those parody films that just throws everything at the wall to see what will stick, but in this film some of it actually sticks. Loading the cast so that it is full of comic character actors was a smart move, but maybe there was just too much going on at all times. Piven can lead a movie, but I think he needed a better movie to showcase that.
Final Grade: D+
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