A1 Movie Reviews

There’s a dilemma with The Dilemma. Billed as a comedic bro-mance between a pair of best friends/business partners, the movie’s central plot is not in the least bit funny. And no amount of Vince Vaughn’s fast-talking or Kevin James’s spastic dancing could ever make it so.

Vaughn plays Ronny, who is handsome and charming–in a “he can sell ice to Eskimos” sort of way–but is nonetheless a 40-year-old late bloomer. A recovering gambling addict, he is two years on the wagon, and finally ready to grow up by closing a big deal with Dodge for an electric engine design and proposing to his gorgeous, patient girlfriend (Jennifer Connelly). His best friend, Nick (James), is not only his business partner and the technical genius behind the product; he is also his relationship role model. Nick and Geneva (Winona Ryder) have been together since college and have what appears to be a perfect romance.

But Ronny discovers Geneva canoodling with a young, tattooed hunk named Zip (Channing Tatum) and is faced with a dilemma: does he adhere to the “bros before hos” code and tell his best friend about her infidelity, thus risking the already sensitive guy’s ability to complete the engine? Does he confront Geneva and make her fess up? Or does he sweep the whole thing under the rug in the interest of completing the deal?

This is serious material, folks. It is not the one about the misunderstanding. It is not even some dark, farcical twist on the one about the misunderstanding. And it is certainly not, as director Ron Howard’s press tour would have you believe, a sidesplitting comedy. The Dilemma’s script, penned by Allan Loeb (The Switch), raises some complicated relationship issues–about the secrets we keep from our spouses, sexless marriages, and a larger question about what exactly constitutes cheating–and then trivializes them by having its actors get kicked in the junk. Add Queen Latifah, normally a pretty good addition to comic casts, as a superfluously sex-talking auto executive, and the whole exercise just falls to pieces.

Sure, Ronny’s knowledge of the infidelity leads to an enjoyably slapstick confrontation with Geneva’s lover that involves dead tropical fish and a makeshift blowtorch. Yes, Howard’s stylized mini-movies-within-in-a-movie to highlight the absurdity of Ronny’s lies is an interesting, if unevenly deployed, conceit. Of course, Ryder is note-perfect in her dual portrayal of a sweet, loving wife and skilled lying manipulator. To his credit, Loeb allows her to have legitimate reasons (if not excuses) for her being a shamefaced hussy, but he makes up for this by giving short shrift to Connelly whose main job it is to cry and look pretty doing it. Taken in concert, these are maddeningly jarring because they don’t belong in the same movie. The constant (and inelegant) shift between Closer-type melodrama and I Love You, Man buddy comedy only serves to underscore just how unfunny the central conundrum in The Dilemma really is.

Also jarring was this film’s shameless approach to product placement. I know it’s a fact of moviemaking life these days, but every time I saw an Apple product, the Dodge logo, or a bus or train station ad for something called “Urban Fox,” it made me want to bellow. It was almost as subtle as the Pizza Hut/ Doritos/ Reebok/ Nuprin/ Pepsi scene in Wayne’s World. Almost. Honestly, isn’t Ron Howard past that point in his career?

For that matter, isn’t he–and everyone involved in the film, really–past the point where a movie like The Dilemma should have even been made? The real dilemma here is how to get Hollywood to see that.