Delivering a misfire

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The latest Vince Vaughn film falls to even more disastrous results than usual.

Courtesy photo

The latest Vince Vaughn film falls to even more disastrous results than usual.

Doug Laman, Staff Reporter/Movie Critic

Oh Vince Vaughn. Can you ever do anything right? Coasting for years on his one-note personality of “loveable jerk”, recent flops have led to him being reevaluated in the eyes of many in Hollywood (although it could lead to the surefire hit Dodgeball 2, which would be fun). His minimal recent financial success could be forgiven if the movies were any good, and a more toned-down flick might be just the thing to bring Vaughn back to the top. But despite a promising story and cast, The Delivery Man is a flop, never really finding any consistent tone or characters for it’s protagonists to inhabit.

David Wozniak (Vince Vaughn) works as a driver for a family owned deli company, with no real direction or purpose in his life. However, after being informed that his donations to a fertility clinic have resulted in 533 children, he feels like he might finally have something truly worthwhile occurring in his life. Soon, he’s off visiting each of these 533 people and trying to make their (and his) lives better.

Vaughn attempts to reign in his usual personality in this film, attempting to make David Wozniak tolerable as a human being and also hoping to catch the audience’s sympathy in his plight. Well, it doesn’t exactly work out as intended, mainly because Vaughn has no acting range at all, leaving Wozniak a  person devoid of all personality and charm. There’s no reason to despise him, but there’s also no reason to root for him; he’s one of the few film characters I’ve seen who really has no defining traits whatsoever. The script itself should take some blame for that, as it’s awfulness is actually more amusing than any of the jokes in the actual movie.

Characters act inconsistent, dialogue becomes unintentionally hilarious and supposedly “uproarious” jokes fall flat. The game cast, including future 2014 action film stars* Jack Reynor, Cobie Smulder and Chris Pratt, try all they can to make this mess bearable in the slightest but it never works. The poor structuring and gaping plot holes in this mess of a screenplay are way too much for any of these actors to overcome.

Now, you might be wondering, how did this avoid getting a worse grade than it did? It’s because I’m a big softie and even I couldn’t resist the films few successful sentimental moments. While some of these poignant moments fail epically (the way they resolve David’s financial problem feels almost like a deus ex machina) others do help the film from becoming a total out and out flop. But aside from that and some humorous bits from Chris Pratt, The Delivery Man is one package you’ll want to send back to sender.

*: The films in question, for Reynor, Smulder and Pratt, are Transformers: Age of Extinction, Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Guardians of The Galaxy respectively.