That Awkward Moment

when your movie is a sitcom

The basic premise of this movie is as follows. Mikey (Michael B. Jordan) is going through a divorce with his wife, and seeks the comfort of his two best friends from college, Jason (Zac Effron) and Daniel (Miles Teller). The friends try to bring him back into the folds of single lifestyle, and make him forget his troubles with his wife. During this time, they make a pact (or bet, I never heard any stipulations for what would happen if they won or lost, but that is what it was referred to as) to not get in a relationship for the foreseeable future. Since this is a movie (or since this is anytime someone is trying to remain single), the two boys trying to help their friend find the perfect women for them shortly after the pact is made (also Mikey is doing somethings with the wife, trying to work it out). The most notable of these perfect relationships is the one Jason finds himself in with Ellie (Imogen Poots), since he is the biggest "player" of the group, having certain rules and stipulations regarding women. Will Jason be able to put aside his pride and be able to settle down? Will Mikey work everything out with his wife or will he succumb to the single lifestyle his friends are preaching about?

Do we care? Yeah, let's just talk about the "story line" here for a bit. It seems to be the same old cliche "pact/bet between a group of people that turns sour" arc. It is the pact to get laid before the end of high school in "American Pie." It is the bet to not do anything sexual in "40 days and 40 nights." So you would think with there being so many versions of the same old story that the writers or director would try to bring something new and interesting to the table in regards to this. Nope. Well nothing that we haven't seen a dozen times before at least. Basically the creators of this, tried to substitute the lack of compelling story with funny situation comedy. Like we were watching episodes of "Friends," "Seinfeld," "Will and Grace," or any sitcom from the nineties. The moment I realized this, was when Ellie told Jason that she was throwing herself a surprise birthday party, and it was a "dress up" party. Since she used the term "dress up" instead of "dress nice" I already saw what was going on. "She means suit and tie, and he is going to take it as costume. What a hoot!" Except it wasn't a hoot since I already knew the punchline. The same can be said for what happens when a "cool girl" comes over to a "guys only" get together; or, what happens to someone who gets "amped up" to go and profess his love to the girl of his dreams, forgetting that he is in the middle of the road. You can tell everything that happens before it happens, and it is sickeningly cliche. The overall premise should have prepared for how unoriginal this movie was going to be, but I guess I like to try to expect the best from even the most horribly packaged "gifts."

The production quality of this was also a little strange. Like the director couldn't decide if he wanted to make an independent movie, or if he wanted to make a mainstream buddy comedy. Mainly, it is just the transitions of the scenes that gave me mixed feelings. Like I was watching some high school power point project, and they decided to go the extra mile to make it a movie. This all would have been fine if I were watching an independent film, but this (allegedly) had a big budget.

A budget that was squandered on the actors giving piss poor performances. The only actor that actually seemed like he was trying to earn the paycheck was Miles Teller, everyone else was just putting forth that they were getting paid regardless. I have seen better performances from both Effron and Jordan, so I can only imagine that they didn't believe in the script, or that they were just tired of seeing these types of movies as well. This is going to be a black mark on a couple of promising actor's records, and that is the most unfortunate part of this entire piece.

Final Verdict: Pirate it There is one actual funny piece of dialogue involving a comparison between an actor and the wife's lawyer, other than that don't waste your time. Don't waste your money on this at all. This is the type of movie that deserves to be stolen from.