MOVIE REVIEWS |
INTERVIEWS |
YOUTUBE |
NEWS
|
EDITORIALS | EVENTS |
AUDIO |
ESSAYS |
ARCHIVES |
CONTACT
|
PHOTOS |
COMING SOON|
EXAMINER.COM FILM ARTICLES
||HOME
Monday, November 25, 2013
MOVIE REVIEW Delivery Man
Shooting Blanks On Screen But *Delivering* Off It
Vince Vaughn as David Wozniak, surrounded by some of his kids, in Ken Scott's
comedy "Delivery Man", based on Mr. Scott's film "Starbuck".
Touchstone Pictures
by
Omar P.L. Moore/PopcornReel.com
FOLLOW
Monday,
November 25,
2013
Canadian filmmaker Ken Scott's film "Starbuck", a brooding
comedy with few laughs, was released sparingly in the U.S. back on March 23,
just eight months ago, to a relative whimper among audiences. "Starbuck"
featured a man who donated sperm over a six-year period, with 533 children
calling him "daddy". "Only" 147 want to see the man in the flesh, and he
wants to safeguard his privacy, as his girlfriend is expecting and he has to pay
off an $80,000 debt.
Mr. Scott has now written and directed a U.S. edition of his own French-Canadian
film, titled "Delivery Man", keeping the facts intact and shifting the
setting to New York City, where David Wozniak (Vince Vaughn) remains a horrible
delivery man in the family's butcher shop business. Like God though, for
lack of a better analogy, he's not always there but arrives right on time when
it counts.
Still, David's jaw freezes, not drops, when girlfriend Emma Angelic (Cobie
Smulders) says she's expecting. Curiously, no more than two scenes later
David confides in his best friend and father-of-four attorney Brett (Chris
Pratt) that he really wants kids. He creepily lurks around the children
he's tracked down in a manner that pedophiles might, encouraging them to be the
best they can be.
The scattershot approach of "Delivery Man", billed as a touchy-feely, poignant
comedy, makes it instead an awkward, bumbling misfire. Devoid of a genuine
core, Mr. Scott's new incarnation feels antiseptic. "Delivery Man" says
more underneath its surface than its characters do explicitly. David
argues about his rights as a father to see his children -- all well considered
-- but I couldn't help thinking of the women whose right to bear them or not has
been suffocated in parts of America.
"Delivery Man" wasn't rounded enough to prevent me from being distracted by that
800-pound elephant.
The question of women, marginalized so egregiously
down to Emma, an often remote and cold presence in the film, screamed loudly
inside my head throughout. Rather than take on weightier questions and
shake up his remake for American audiences, Mr. Scott and co-writer Martin Petit
elect to go the more predictable, cynical route, retreating to a safe position
when daring to delve deeper would be logical. "Delivery Man" also doesn't
burrow down into the politics surrounding parental responsibility and the ethics
of privacy the way a comedy like this should. That's simply because the
film lacks sophistry and sincerity.
Furthermore: I know this is a comedy but I couldn't help thinking, "where are
the mothers of the 147 children?" They aren't so much as mentioned.
Why do all of the children want their father at the same time? The
children all look similar in height and size despite different mothers.
Isn't that a tad strange? "Delivery Man" also flaunts phallic symbols --
sausages -- dangling in the butcher shop, as if boastful weapons of masculinity.
Or a marking of male-dominated territory, which the film is. Women are
strangely absent, and it's mildly disturbing, to say the least. (David's
mother has passed away, too.) It's a territory that's more celebratory
than masturbatory. Lots of sperm. Lots of babies. Yee-haw.
I'm a man. I'm a manly man. It's a bizarre mix, and this is what
operates as the film's subtext.
Believe it or not, David himself has a good heart (when he's not trying to speak
Spanish) but he mocks some of his donees' finished products. (Maybe his
heart isn't that good.) In one montage sequence a daughter who is black
draws a brief 1980s "Soul Man" chuckle from David, and it's meant to produce a
chuckle from the audience, too. "Delivery Man" sometimes forgets that it's
a 21st century film, aligning some of its sensibility with that of Washington
Post columnist Richard Cohen in the idea that, hey, what do you know?, a
black child could actually be conceived through a sperm donated by
a white man. Mr. Cohen might say, "surely you jest, for it surely
can't be!"
Lurking deeper beneath that Cohen perception is the imagined consternation
surrounding a would-be film entitled "Delivery Brother", with Eddie Griffin in
the lead as Dayshawn Williams, perpetuating a stereotype and a stigma that
America has grown all-too comfortable with. Think of the unholy satirical
territory that Mr. Scott could have wadded into. Even that would have been
better and more interesting than what he's reproduced here.
To the filmmakers of "Delivery Man" I don't even ask, "where's the beef?" I wonder: where's the meat on the bones of your movie?
Also with: Andrzej Blumenfield, Simon Delaney, Bobby Moynihan, Adam
Chanler-Berat, Britt Robertson.
"Delivery Man" is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association Of America
for thematic elements, sexual content, some drug material, brief violence and
language. The
film's running time is one hour and forty-three minutes.
COPYRIGHT 2013. POPCORNREEL.COM. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
FOLLOW
MOVIE REVIEWS |
INTERVIEWS |
YOUTUBE |
NEWS
|
EDITORIALS | EVENTS |
AUDIO |
ESSAYS |
ARCHIVES |
CONTACT
| PHOTOS |
COMING SOON|
EXAMINER.COM FILM ARTICLES
||HOME