Unfinished Business (2 out of 10) – Directed by Ken Scott, Written by Steven Conrad; Starring Vince Vaughn, Tom Wilkinson, Dave Franco, Sienna Miller, with Nick Frost and James Marsden; Rated R for “some strong risqué sexual content/graphic nudity, and for language and drug use”; 91 minutes.
“Unfinished Business” is so thoroughly unremarkable, there just isn’t much to say about it except that you can skip it. Which is unfortunate, because it seems like at once point there was a heart in this film about a dad trying to learn how to create a work-life balance while also launching his own business, but then it gets overtaken by this raunchy road trip movie. Obviously the producers and marketing people thought the road trip aspect was far more marketable, and so that’s what gets emphasized both in the film, the poster, the trailer, etc.
By the end, it’s trying to pull its threads back together and tie them together, but it just can’t. It would like to achieve some sort of sentimentality, but it just can’t after blatantly throwing so much drug use and so many boobs and penises at the audience. It also may be offensive towards people with mental handicaps and older people.
And to top it all off, it just isn’t very funny. As thoroughly unremarkable a sequel as “Hot Tub Time Machine 2″ was, it was at least funnier than this.
Which is sad, given the talents of the people in this film. Every single person in this cast deserved a better script and a better movie. They’re all better than this. Dave Franco actually shines as possibly the most interesting/funny part of this film, but there’s just not enough there. Nick Frost, however, somehow manages to shine up his little turd of a part into something resembling funny.
But in the end, there’s no reason to care about these characters and their exploits. And it was as unbelievable and unrelatable as it was unfunny.
2 out of 10