Made

Two down-on-their-luck boxers get an opportunity to repay a debt to a gangster by doing him a favor in New York City. As it turns out, one of them is a goof, while the other likes to play things serious, and it isn’t long before things go awry and the boys run into even more trouble.

Yikes…talk about a disappointment! This was actually one of the films that I had been looking forward to the most all year, seeing as SWINGERS, the original movie starring Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn, is one of my favorite films of all-time. So there I was, sitting in the theatre, seeing the two boys straddle their way into another “hip” movie together, but wow…what a letdown. Very few laughs, uninteresting and one-dimensional characters all around, a so-so story, over-directing from Favreau, Puff Daddy “pretending” to be a big shot and one of the worst endings that I’ve seen this year. If this flick didn’t have Vince Vaughn and his patented “Vaughnisms” going on, it would have been a total dud. Thankfully, Vince is there and he is so “on” whenever his character talks or walks onto the big screen (mind you, his character in SWINGERS was a better rounded character, but that’s another story altogether). They should have made this whole movie about him, or at least have given the rest of the folks in the picture something interesting to do or say. Favreau was “okay” as his friend, but you just didn’t care about the guy.

In fact, other than being a couple of knuckleheads who look good in suits, there wasn’t really much to either one of these two guys. A cheap “relationship” is set up with Famke Janssen and her daughter (who is adorable, btw, but is tossed into an emotional conclusion for what purpose again?!?), Puff Daddy and his partner are as generic and lame as they come (was I supposed to fear P-Diddy’s character?), Peter Falk is good, but he’s only in a couple of scenes, I mean…what’s this movie about? Well, it’s about trying to score a few bucks off the legend that is SWINGERS and I for one, certainly didn’t mind revisiting these guys in another movie, but hell boys, why not make a good movie the next time around! This film had very little energy, featured rookie director Favreau over-playing his directing card (dude, it’s a comedy, no need to play the camera so much), contained way too many montages (sign of a weak script) and basically gave us only one reason to ever see it again: Vince Vaughn! I will stand up and applaud this gentleman right now because his lines, his delivery and his grandiose attitude in this movie were friggin’ hilarious…he was soooo money! (and I think he knew it, too!) It’s just too bad that the rest of the movie couldn’t keep up with the man. The big downer at the end of the film didn’t help matters either. Skip this one altogether but watch it on video if you’re a SWINGERS fan, just to see what our ol’ friend Trent is still up to…

(c) 2021 Berge Garabedian