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From left: Ving Rhames, Jeremy Piven, David Koechner, and Kathryn Hahn in “The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard.’’ (Sam Emerson) |
Movie Review
The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard
Farce about used-car lot runs like a clunker
The government recently decided to subsidize the purchase of new automobiles for Americans driving alleged junk. The program is called Cash for Clunkers. But anyone looking for a cheap, timely vicarious alternative might try “The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard,’’ a comedy set on a used-car lot in Temecula, Calif. You put up the cash, the movie clunks.
It’s conceivable that the filmmakers were prescient about the states of the economy and the auto industry. But these are some of the same people - namely executive producers Will Ferrell and Adam McKay - who lifted their legs and did their business all over local TV news (“Anchorman’’), stockcar racing (“Talladega Nights’’), and brotherhood (“Step Brothers’’). Sharp social satire is not in the cards. Sadly, neither is farce, which is what the three previous movies gleefully had in common. “The Goods’’ has its exuberant moments. But the people behind the camera don’t appear to know what they’re doing as well as those in front of it.
The film sics a quartet of car sales consultants on a sputtering dealership that needs help. The head sales guru, Don Ready (Jeremy Piven), vows to move all 211 cars off the lot of a veteran owner (James Brolin) before a slick rival (Alan Thicke) takes over the space so his son and the veteran’s future son-in-law (Ed Helms) can have a space to rehearse - sigh - his boy band. The veteran’s daughter (Jordana Spiro) has also come home to help out.
It seems as if the writers, Andy Stock and Rick Stempson, have watched a lot of Ferrell and McKay’s work, more than their share of mawkish television, and Robert Zemeckis’s hardworking 1980 comedy, “Used Cars.’’ If I were Zemeckis, I would save the lawyer for a worthier cause. “Used Cars’’ was marred by ambition. “The Goods,’’ like a lot of current comedies, suffers from cynical laziness. The marketing department will get you to come. Once you’re there, what can you do?
The filmmakers jerk between random gags, many of which feel like very funny outtakes, and earnest strands of story. There’s plenty of time to contemplate Piven’s limitations as a comic actor. When he can’t be obnoxious or aggrieved, there’s not much more to him than the mysteries of his hair. You want to touch it just to see if an alarm goes off.
The rest of the cast - which includes Ving Rhames, David Koechner, Kathryn Hahn, Craig Robinson, Rob Riggle, Tony Hale, Charles Napier, and Ken Jeong - seems blissfully ignorant of what’s what. They play would-be sincere material with almost as much funk as they do the gags. To them it’s all one long fart joke.
The director, Neal Brennan, was a big part of the fearless “Chappelle’s Show’’ (oh, how it is missed). His affection for the grit and vulgarity of black comedy are the only inspired moments in the movie. When Farrell shows up for one of his cameos, he’s flanked by two angels who sing backup while he whines. Gwen Stewart and Courtney Alain Bradshaw play the angels, and they’re effortlessly funny. If there were any justice in the movie business, a studio would give these two cash for a clunker of their own.
Wesley Morris can be reached at wmorris@globe.com. For more on movies, go to www.boston.com/movienation. 
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