Cinemazlowski 'Unfinished Business' stoops low for shock comedy

Mar 6, 2015

From the moment I first saw it as a 16 year old back in 1987, “Planes, Trains & Automobiles” was one of my all-time favorite movies. I've probably seen it at least 50 times since then, with at least half of those occurring during the annual Thanksgiving week screenings that pop up on TV in order to remind us all of the funny yet bittersweet story of two traveling salesmen desperately trying to make it home for the holiday.

Not many movies have been able to pull that magic off since, but the new movie “Unfinished Business” - starring Vince Vaughn, Tom Wilkinson and Dave Franco – has that kind of feel for much of its briskly paced running time. The story of three struggling businessmen who are so desperate to land a huge deal that they'll make a madcap dash across Germany to beat their competition, the movie is extremely original and highly unpredictable with top-notch comic performances.

But just like “PT&A” could have been an even greater family classic if it wasn't for the one scene where an enraged Steve Martin cusses out an auto-rental clerk by saying the F word literally 26 times in 60 seconds (I've counted), “Unfinished Business” blows its opportunity for a wider audience. Its storyline – which also includes Vaughn's lead character dealing with problems from his loving wife and kids back home – had plenty of clean laughs without having to go dirty. But it unfortunately does, and in far worse and more frequent fashion than “Planes” ever imagined.

The movie follows Dan Trunkman (Vince Vaughn), a hardworking and loving family man with a wife and two troubled children. He quits his sales job in the opening scene, saying he's had enough of his female boss Chuck (Sienna Miller) and that he can start a company selling metals that still respects his employees and their quality of life.

Only two men join him: a 67 year old named Timothy (Tom Wilkinson), who has just been laid off due to his age but wants to work, and a young guy named Mike Pancake (Dave Franco), who followed Dan out the door after failing a job interview due to his stupid answers. It is unclear throughout the movie if Mike has a mental disability or is just weird and naïve, but either way his goofiness is extremely lovable and entertaining.

After a year of largely failing, the trio get a chance to close a major deal but have to travel to do so. They head to Portland, Maine, only to learn that the real deal is to be made in Berlin. So off they go, nearly penniless, to Germany with only blind hope that they will succeed – only to find that Chuck meets them there as competition for the deal they thought they had sealed.

What ensues is a mad dash of bizarre meetings and misadventures. Unfortunately, writer Steve Conrad and director Ken Scott stoop to real lows for shock comedy at some moments of the movie, including the naïve Mike's attempts to have sex for the first time and the men's search for a gay businessman in the middle of a homosexual street festival. Where they end up involves highly visible male frontal nudity and jokes about extremely aberrant behavior.

There is also a major scene in which the men have to enter a unisex spa with lots of non-genital nudity from both sexes, in which Trunkman is forced to drop his own pants in order to convince a major businesswoman to negotiate with him since she's already sitting nude in a sauna.

The movie also features lots of foul language throughout, although this is delivered in inventive, motor-mouthed bursts from Vaughn and is a sort of trademark for the actor. If you're a fan of his prior work, you won't be offended, but if you hate hearing much profanity no matter how humorously it's delivered, then definitely count the language as another element in the “reasons to avoid” list.

Overall, the movie plays as if it is schizophrenic, even though I'll admit that I found almost all of it extremely funny myself. If you can handle the movies of the Farrelly Brothers, such as “There's Something About Mary” and “Dumb and Dumber,” you'll like this. But I'm afraid that for most of our audience, this is a must-avoid and I do wish the filmmakers had had the common sense to just keep it clean, or at least toned down, all the way through.

It's also a shame because the movie has very positive portrayals of family life and the American can-do spirit in the face of adversity, and this is a film that could actually inspire some people who are facing hard times at work. Here's hoping that someone out there in Hollywood – or better yet, many of them – will have the guts to tell a refreshing, funny, adventurous story without having to wallow in moral muck along the way.