The Goods. Good Enough.

For what seemed to be billed as a balls-out comedy, I was always waiting for the other ball to drop.  Not to say that it didn’t have its funny moments, it did, and when they were on, they were on, but when it was all over I was left a little wanting.

The Goods stars Jeremy Pivens, of HBO’s Entourage, as Don “The Goods” Ready a “mercenary” car salesman who leads a team of slightly morally deprived salesmen.  Don is called in by failing car dealer Ben Selleck (played by James Brolin) to help him sell his lot of cars over a four day Fourth of July weekend.  Of course, there are subplots involving Don and the members of his team; namely Don thinking he’s found a son he didn’t know existed, and Babs (played by Kathryn Hahn), the only girl on his team, who has an immense sexual crush on Ben’s son Peter, who is mentally a ten year old trapped in a thirty year old body.  You also have a small cameo by Will Ferrell as Don’s deceased friend and former member of the team.

The problem with the movie isn’t it’s over preposterous premise, or even its overly flawed wacky characters.  The problem, is that it doesn’t know when to stop sometimes.  Every comedy needs a straight-man, and this movie is lacking one.  What they try to pass off as the straight-man is too entangled as another Don subplot and foil, that it doesn’t properly fuel his hysterics.  Every other character is just as over the top and crazy as Don and his team.  Because of this, the comedy isn’t focused in one direction, but instead is fired like buckshot at the screen to make any impact it can. A prime example of this is the DJ, who is only memorable for one line, and unnecessary the rest of the time.

Now, the good parts. The key to a good comedy is having solid one-liners that can stand on their own and make you or your friends laugh with a mere mention, and at this The Goods delivers.  Whether it’s “I think we just participated in hate crime.”, “James van der Beek, that’s ma nigga!”, or “Hug your father, boy.” Just thinking of them makes me smile.  And if you really want me to laugh say: “I’ve had gold, diamond, and platinum showers- I really like those.”. I think what really kills this movie is the audience.  A comedy needs to be viewed in a packed theater to get the laughs going and keep them coming. You sometimes feel stupid when you’re the only person laughing at a joke in a crowd of 20 people, which is what I had when I went to the theater.  Movie primetime on a Friday night, and there are only 20 people in the theater.  What do you expect when the movie only opens in 1836 screens. I’m lucky it even came to my town at all.

The Goods is worth seeing, and will produce some solid laughs.  Not a bad way to kill an hour and a half.  Trust me on this one, I saw Drag Me To Hell, Punisher: War Zone, and The Spirit in theaters.  I would have rather been frozen in Carbonite.

I’ll leave you with one last quote: “Like John Wilkes Booth, our prices will sneak up behind you and blow your brains out!”