The Dilemma Film Review (2011)

1 hr. 58 mins.

Starring: Vince Vaughn, Kevin James, Jennifer Connelly, Winona Ryder, Channing Tatum, Queen Latifah

Directed by: Ron Howard

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Rating: * ½ stars (out of 4 stars)

The best buddy comedy The Dilemma presents a rather interesting choice: one can go and check out a disastrously derivative laugher that has all the chuckle-worthy appeal of an impacted tooth or one can actually go to the dentist and have that said impacted tooth yanked. Most likely you can bet on the latter being more suitable entertainment than the former. When all is said and done The Dilemma is another canned conveyor belt comedy rolled out aimlessly to satisfy the doldrums of yet another stillborn albeit beginning new movie season.

Dour and draining of any frothy freshness, The Dilemma hovers over its mediocrity much like an impish cat digging its teeth into a periled, juicy lifeless rodent. Surprisingly, Oscar-winning director Ron Howard spearheads this pseudo-witty wasteland in forgettable, faceless fashion. This colorless comedy features what one might expect from lead comedic cut-ups Vince Vaughn and Kevin James-a standard streaming of vacuous verbiage (particularly from a motor-mouthed Vaughn), misunderstood manic mockery, the obligatory stand-by fat-guy jokes designated for James's cutesy consideration, stilted situational set-ups and shades of misplaced sentimentality that belong in this fruitless farce as much as the Hatfields and McCoys at a White House correspondence dinner. This unconvincingly hodge-podge of comic creativity is basically a tarnished tidbit that's doomed to be plastered on Howard's otherwise digestible resume of diverse cinematic achievement.

The premise involves best buddies Ronny Valentine (Vaughn) and Nick Brennan (James) connected by their collegiate friendship and professional bond in the auto design firm they own together. Ronny (a former gambling addict) is the fast-talking sales pitchman while stressed-out Nick is the crafty engineer that oversees the vehicles' maintenance procedures. Things couldn't be better at the moment as Nick is married to Geneva (Winona Ryder, "Black Swan") and Ronny has a viable yet sometimes rocky relationship with girlfriend Beth (Oscar-winner Jennifer Connelly from Howard's "A Beautiful Mind"). In fact, Ronny and Nick look to make a business deal killing if they can sell their fuel-efficient engine concept to General Motors and reap the considerable financial benefits. So what can happen to knock out the potential bliss that surrounds the guys' friendship, love life and work-related utopia? Glad you asked...

Just as Ronny is preparing to ask Beth's hand in marriage, he stumbles upon a sticky revelation as Geneva is caught intimately kissing another man named Zip (Channing Tatum). And so the movie's title comes into play as the proposed dilemma: should Ronny tell an already flustered Nick that his spouse Geneva may be stepping out on him? If Ronny decides to "do the right thing" and inform Nick that he is being made to look a fool regarding his shaky marriage then this may result in Nick's faulty concentration affecting his craftsmanship with motors. Naturally, Ronny needs Nick at his full engineering best if they are to convince a GM bigwig (played by Queen Latifah) to go with their aforementioned fuel-efficient plan.

Is Ronny showing signs of betrayal to Nick at the expense of major-sized dollars and cents? Will the withholding of this Geneva-cheating scandal backfire and ruin the trusting connection that existed between college cohorts Ronny and Nick? Better yet, how will Howard cohesively explain this monotonous movie that doesn't even match the height of hilarity in a substandard nostalgic episode of his old 70's sitcom Happy Days?

The main trouble with The Dilemma is that the lame laughs never fully materialize giving way to the exhausted gimmick of having Vaughn's Ronny Valentine hide this hurtful tidbit about his dear friend's philandering wife. As if this is not convoluted enough, we get to experience the suspicions that portly put-upon Nick has on the tall timber tree-built Ronny as he wonders (along with a curious and concerned Beth) if his loquacious chum is back to his gambling habits. Everybody seems to have the so-called skinny on one another yet all lips are sealed as the silly-minded suspicions unfold in cheeky, uneventful Three's Company retrostyle humor.

Along with Howard's pedestrian direction, screenwriter Allan Loeb ("The Switch") concocts this rancid romp with lazy-eyed precision in a lacking screenplay that begs for stabilizing chuckles. What is demonstrated here is nutty-induced nonsense that is left on the shallow shoulders of talkative titan Vaughn to carry for 118 minutes of the empty zaniness that persists. Surprisingly, James does not even appear on screen in equal doses of screen time as does Vaughn despite both being promoted as the laugh-out-loud leads heading up this callow cold fish comedy. The quirky supporting roles from Ryder, Connelly, Tatum and Latifah are arbitrarily incidental to the manufactured mayhem that is palatably underwhelming. Maybe...just maybe...the contrasting physicality of Vaughn's Lurch-like presence and James's short, doughboy dimensions adds an unintentional sight gag that may be the movie's only consist guffaw that works consistently.

The fact that The Dilemma is laborious in its shiftless presentation doesn't bode well for Howard and company for producing a delirious dud that fails to sizzle on acceptable comedic cylinders. Sadly, this cheesy chucklefest will probably make its big office bucks for no other reason than the fact that bargain basement mainstream comedies nowadays are routinely up front and center for mindless moviegoers to indulge in effortlessly without definable expectation or accountability.

Hopefully this banal big screen boo-boo is a targeted dilemma that some might avoid knowingly.