Release Date – 8/14/09
Don “The Goods” Ready is a mercenary in the business of selling cars. He travels from city to city when dealerships are having problems making deals with customers. His sleazy but genius methods are always successful. His team travels to Temecula, California in order to save Selleck Auto from going bankrupt. He makes some friends, some enemies, and meets a chick he might have a thing for. All the while he impresses the pants off of everyone he encounters. The movie is a lot funnier than I thought it would be. Completely ridiculous and stupid yet hilarious at moments. Reminded me of Anchorman, a movie filled with a wide range of characters each funny in their own way but just a silly story altogether.
Jeremy Piven as the lead, Don Ready, is risky mostly because he hasn’t had to carry a movie in awhile. Basically he does his Ari Gold from Entourage character which he has perfected over the last few years. I gotta admit he’s funny and full of great lines; a perfect leader of the pack. “I have hair on my balls, and I sell cars. The End.” But the movie relies on its entire cast to be successful. Ready’s team consists of Ving Rhames as Jibby, a smooth guy looking for love, David Koechner (Champ from Anchorman) as Brent, the right hand man, and Kathryn Hahn as Babs, the sexed up but hard ass female of the group. All were great, the chick got a tad annoying but definitely still had some funny scenes. Supporting cast is comprised of James Brolin as the dealership owner, Craig Robinson (Daryl from The Office) as the DJ refusing to take requests, Ken Jeong (The King from Role Models) and Tony Hale (Buster from Arrested Development) as salesmen, Ed Helms (Andy from The Office) as the boy band leader arch enemy of Ready, and even Alan Thicke from Growing Pains had a small part. I won’t give away the hilarious cameo. The love interest was Jordana Spiro from the TV show My Boys as Ivy, Brolin’s daughter. Each character was involved in at least a few funny scenes making it a great decision for a large cast. And there’s even more, I just couldn’t list them all.
The movie came on full force and had me laughing hard nonstop for the first 30 minutes. Eventually it kind of hits a wall and the story starts to fall flat with funny scenes sprinkled here and there from then on out. They had to build up a love story which was anti-climatic and kind of lame but every movie needs a little love for the ladies. At least its one of those movies where you can quote most of the lines over and over again. That’s why I compare it to Anchorman. Not to mention it was produced by Adam McKay and Will Ferrell so maybe that’s where the Anchorman feeling comes from. I have to admit I was very pleasantly surprised at how many laughs it provided. If it could have kept the strong comedy from beginning until the end then it would have been a MADE movie but I’ll have to mark it a bit short. This is the first theater released film for writers Andy Stock and Rick Stempson and also for director Neal Brennan so hopefully it launches them on to some more comedies. I approve of their work.
IMDB – N/A
Rotten Tomatoes – N/A
Movie Wiseguys – 7.5/10