‘The Goods’ is Raunchy Trash Incapable of Executing a Joke
-----I have never seen a full trailer for ‘The Goods.’ With that in mind, I can say I went in open minded; only questioning why my relatively small theater received a film that just barely passed for a wide release. Unfortunately, this movie wasn’t funny, had NO likable characters, and looks more or less homemade.
-----‘The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard’ is a story as stupid as its elongated title. Sleazebag Don Ready travels with his team of dirty car salesmen (and woman) clearing out lots for desperate used car dealerships. This time he and his team are called upon to clear out a lot in Temecula, California. You should be able to fill in the conventional blanks from this point on.
-----Jeremy Piven plays Don Ready. He’s a loser who somehow fancies himself a king, and it’s not funny. The whole movie is spent with everyone pointing out how wrong he is, but he is apparently oblivious. The rest of the cast is composed of a number of actors and actresses who are usually funny, but here are just plain damn annoying. Ed Helms and Ken Jeong, two of the comedic geniuses behind the year’s funniest film, ‘The Hangover,’ also participate in the worthless exercise known as ‘The Goods.’ They both try hard, and both die hard. The primary problem with them and much of the cast is the camera that so blatantly closes in on them preparing for their jokes, and the script which so dryly thinks itself funny. David Koechner plays the same guy he always plays, a role which can be comedic, but has been stabbed to death by his repetition of the once funny routine. Also here are Ving Rhames as the number two man in Don’s crew, ‘The Office’ star Craig Robinson as “DJ Request,” and Kathryn Hahn as the sex symbol of Don’s team. To put the film in perspective for you, I will clue you in to the running jokes for the aforementioned three stars. Ving Rhames tries to be funny in his attempt to “make love” to a woman; he’s had sex, but wants love, until he finds out it’s, “boring.” DJ Request is supposed to get laughs because he does the opposite song to what anyone, “requests.” Get it? And finally, Hahn’s character’s running joke is that she wants to have sex with a ten year old who looks like a 30 year old thanks to a hormone disorder. I’m not making this up. This is the trash that passes for comedy in ‘The Goods.’
-----With a poor script that practically announces a joke is about to be made, and crappy filmmaking seeing it through, I hate pretty much everything about this movie. Its one saving grace is that it rattles off so many jokes that it gets a very rare chuckle from an otherwise disgusted audience. Oh, I did forget to mention the college kids who sat behind me in the largely empty theater. They thought pretty much everything was funny, even when the same joke was forced on the screen over and over and over again. Not to worry though, this anomaly can be explained; they were all almost certainly drunk out of their minds.
-----The film from a technical standpoint only gets worse. Whether it’s a terribly executed stunt, or just poor lighting, the film reeks of B-movie woes. The production is poor, and what’s onscreen amplifies it a million fold. The movie is pretty much just the complete package, desperately vying to be the worst movie of the year. Mercifully it earns its half star because a few of the should-be-funny actors on screen try just hard enough, and get a pity laugh here and there.
-----Don’t see this movie, don’t rent this movie; don’t even call this a movie. On top of my personal issues with it, the film also makes it a point to have multiple scenes in a strip club, their sole purpose being unnecessary and uncalled for nudity that in no way add anything to the humor or the nonexistent story. I rarely take issue with any graphic material in films, but when lap dances become a supposed source of humor, things get insultingly bad. If some of ‘The Goods’ actually is funny, it has only a shameless attitude to thank. And now that I have bashed the many elements that weren’t instantly drained from my brain, I will admit the movie didn’t get excruciatingly boring until the final few scenes. So for a laugh or two and a semblance of self awareness, ‘The Goods’ earns half a star. Of course, anyone and everyone who considers themselves a member of an intelligent race should stay away at all costs.
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