REVIEW: The Goods (2009) ONE STAR
The Goods
Rated: R
Runtime: 90 minutes
Starring: Jeremy Piven
My rating: 1 star
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Hello, Mr. Car Dealership, I’d like to get $4,500 to trade in this clunker.
“Why, Mr. Cassavaugh?”
Well, for starters, it makes obscene noises every time it turns a corner. It also has a tendency to stall out… Oh, I almost forgot. It also honks wildly and swerves to try and hit homosexuals for no apparent reason.
“It sounds like that clunker is in rough shape. Here’s $4,500.”
I wish.
Jumper cables couldn’t save The Goods from its own wretchedness. Jeremy Piven is the only reason I did not walk out of this movie, and he wasn’t good either, but I really tried hard to like his character.
Piven plays Don “The Goods” Ready, a contracted car salesman who specializes in pulling dealerships from the brink of bankruptcy. He’s hired by Ben Selleck (James Brolin) to sell 211 cars on the July 4 weekend. Why was this film not released near July 4? Because it’s terrible.
Selleck is unexplainably gay, but his main salesman, Dick (Charles Napier), is unexplainably homophobic. Perhaps there’s another storyline there I’m missing, but we won’t go there.
Anyway, there’s Ivy (Jordan Spiro), Selleck’s daughter who is engaged to the rival dealer’s son, Paxton (Ed Helms). She also flirts a lot with Don, despite his “buckshot” approach, meaning he “keeps firing until he hits.” Ah, yes, the reason frat boys leave college single.
Also like frat boys, the film (if you can call it that) litters foul language throughout whatever joke it’s attempting to tell. It comes across trite, embarrassing and showed a complete lack of effort by writers Andy Stock and Rick Stempson, both of whom must be huge fans of HBO’s “Entourage.” Piven plays a foul-talking celebrity agent on the show, and his character works because he isn’t the focus of the series and audiences don’t get sick of him.
Here though, Piven plays the same character, except as a car salesman. And we get 90 minutes of him. Enough is enough.
Don Ready’s life of immorality and sinning has left him shallow and lonely. Guess what happens to try and make this movie passable? Telegraphed is too kind a word to describe The Goods, a movie which is better left in the used car lot. It is, by all intents and purposes, a lemon.
Not only is the story telegraphed, but the writing showed zero understanding of how humans interact. In one scene, a large herd of people are screaming outside the dealership waiting for the gates to open. The salespeople, like lions, snarl on the inside waiting to take down their prey. I have never seen such an act.
The dialog is awkward and forced, and the acting, aside from Helms, is mailed-in. Don’t bother seeing The Goods, you will leave the theater disappointed and with barely a chuckle to remember. I know I won’t remember much about this rusted, rickety piece of garbage a week from now. One star.
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Where it's playing:
Canton/PotsdamSHOWTIMES
Watertown SHOWTIMES
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