Delivery Man (**½)
Directed
by: Ken Scott
Starring:
Vince Vaughn, Chris Pratt, Cobie Smulders, Adrzej Blumenfeld, Simon Delaney,
Bobby Moynihan, Dave Patten, Adam Chandler-Berat, Britt Robertson, Jack Reynor
Seen:
January 22nd 2014
**½
Out of ****
Delivery
Man has a pedigree. It’s a remake of a French-Canadian movie, by the same
director, of only two years earlier, called Starbuck – still the main character’s
pseudonym here. It was advertised as an almost straight comedy, with Vince
Vaughn’s funniest bits thrown into the trailer to lure fans to cinemas, which is
false advertising in a sense, as the movie is more heartfelt drama than comedy,
with only moments of occasional comedy thrown into the mix. Vince Vaughn is
known for his over-the-top comedy chops, and here in Delivery Man he is still
funny, but he plays much more of a regular character with some serious character
flaws and a big past… not so much mistake as happenstance, coming up to bite
him in the rear.
David
Wozniak (Vaughn) is a delivery man for his family’s butchery. He is the family’s
odd one out, as is amusingly evidenced by his father telling him that he loves
him like his own son, even though he really is just that… He has made some
seriously bad financial choices, which has landed him in some trouble with less
than savoury characters, while his girlfriend Emma (Smulders) is pregnant with
his child, but wants to leave him because he’s such a slacker.
A
lawyer approaches David on behalf of a sperm bank where, during his student
years, he donated a lot of sperm over a two year period. The sperm bank has
made a colossal administrative error, resulting in David being the biological
father of 533 children, and 142 of them have joined a class action lawsuit to
uncover the true identity of their father, up to now only known by his
donation-pseudonym, Starbuck. David’s lawyer, his friend Brett (Pratt), advises
against his involvement with the case, telling him to just stay out of view. He
hands David an envelope with the personal profile of every one of the
plaintiffs in the lawsuit, but tells him not to open it. What could possibly
happen next, you may ask? David opens the envelope, and acts on one profile at
a time, going out of his way to meet this person, to possibly assist this
person, while remaining anonymous. His helping and influencing his kids
together with him having to deal with the criminal element he owes money to as
well as his relationship with his family makes for some amusing and entertaining
cinema.
Delivery
Man is actually a pretty entertaining movie with true feeling and some good
values along the way. It is however slightly strange to expect an almost
low-brow comedy and to get something like this. Vince Vaughn, usually the
comedic centre of his movies, takes the dramatic front seat with Chris Pratt holding
the comedic relief reins. Delivery Man is a sweet movie, and while it’s not
what most of us would expect from the trailer and from a movie starring Vaughn,
it is worth a watch to see Vaughn outside his comfort zone giving us a flawed
but good character, intent on making lives better.
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