The Dilemma: DVD Review

The Dilemma: DVD Review

The Dilemma: DVD Review

0 comments 📅30 May 2011, 01:25

No dilemma – this is one to avoid…

Before bromance, there was Vince Vaughn loving it up with best pal Jon Favreau in Swingers. He showed us the power of the male bond to overcome the tribulations of dating and sex. Now male buddies are everywhere and Vaughn’s bigmouth shtick is starting to wear as thin as a Jennifer Aniston romantic comedy.

Here he stars as Ronny Valentine, a bachelor just coming around to the idea of getting hitched to his beautiful girlfriend (Jennifer Connelly).

His main problem, though, is Nick (Kevin James), his best mate and business partner in the kind of company where people run around with iPads to rock music. Does Ronny tell his bud when he glimpses Nick’s wife (played implausibly by Winona Rider) canoodling with another man? Does he heck.

Ron Howard steers this clunky vehicle uncomfortably, although the source material doesn’t help. Falling between two stools, it doesn’t quite work as a marital drama or a knockabout comedy – see Nick’s piercing insight that ‘Love is like a warm stew’. See also the insertion of Queen Latifah as a Chrysler executive who comes out with gems like ‘You are giving me Lady wood over here’. Executive producer Vaughn’s grandstanding through the whole movie also doesn’t allow any of the other characters to breathe.

Sadly there’s no chat-track, which is a shame as listening to a 57-year-old Ron Howard talking about directing a thirtysomething relationship comedy could have been good value. The drab alternate ending is not.

VERDICT: 4/10 


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