“Unfinished Business” Leaves Some Business Unfinished
By KEVIN STUDER
Editor-in-Chief
Sometimes business trips are not going to be what you expected them to be, however if you have a business trip like the one in this film, you may need to rethink your position.
Vince Vaughn leads this new comedy where his character, Dan Truckman, leaves his job to create a new company where he is respected due to the unfairness of his current boss Chuck Portnoy (Sienna Miller).
A year later, Dan and his two associates, Timothy McWinters (Tom Wilkinson) and Mike Pancake (Dave Franco) take a business trip to Europe to finish a business deal with Jim Spinch (James Marsden), just to find out that Chuck is also there competing for the same deal.
Of course, chaos then ensues throughout the rest of the film and how could it not when you are overseas and competing against your former boss.
The men in the film all have weird qualities that are never fully explored to the depth they should be. Mike is a bit slow, though it is never mentioned why. Timothy loves sex and drugs and wants to divorce his wife, but they never really say what lead him to this point other than “he’s never made real love.” And Dan is a father, whose son is being bullied, but he never does anything to solve the problem.
The film has its funny moments, especially when Franco is on the screen. His dimwitted charm is enough to get you through the movie, but there are too many jokes that aren’t as funny as they should be crammed into the film.
Vaughn isn’t as funny as he used to be (or thinks he is), but the subplot about his son being bullied really seemed to be shedding light on an important topic. That is until the movie ends and you realize that he only gave his son advice on how not to listen to bullies but no advice on how to stand up for himself and stop the bullying.
The film also took some weird turns as the men ended up at a large gay sex fetish event, a global economic summit and a drug-induced party at a youth hostel. When they say the film is rated R, it’s not so much for the crude language, but more for the drug use and nakedness. Before you walk out of the theater, you will see multiple breasts and penises, so beware of that if you want something more modest.
Rather than focusing on more important topics and bringing out the humor in them, this film tries to make everything as crudely humorous as possible. The end result is that you feel like the story is incomplete after it ends.
“Unfinished Business” is playing in theaters everywhere now.
