“This summer, I answered a casting cattle call for extras for Ted 2. I wasn’t able to make it work for that movie, but it still got me on an email list where I occasionally receive notifications about other opportunities to be an extra. Sometime this fall, I got one of those.
“”Extras needed for Unfinished Business”” Hmm what’s this movie? “”Stars Vince Vaughn and Dave Franco”” Ooooh that’s cool. Aww, but these things are always during the week and too short notice to take off work. “”Filming this Saturday all day”” OMG, on a weekend! And I have absolutely nothing to do! Yesssss!! “”Must be comfortable appearing in lingerie”” Um yeah no, sorry. Not gonna happen.
I continued getting more emails about that shoot, and kept an eye out for others where they would have wanted fully clothed extras. Nothing ever came of it. Fast foward to now that I’ve seen it, and oh my God, I have never been so happy to have NOT been in a movie. Words I never thought I’d say.
I was so bored and unimpressed, my fitness tracker thinks I was asleep thru half of it. I’m not even joking. In looking over the day’s stats, there were blue spikes (sleep) in the middle of the orange ones (activity) showing during the time I was watching this.
So the aforementioned Vaughn and Franco, along with Tom Wilkinson break off from a major company and form their own competing business selling something with a really funny name. We know they’re pretty bad at it, but I couldn’t ever get my head around what “”it”” was or how they could conceive of starting an independent firm to do that. So that was problem number one. Problem two was that it just wasn’t good. The screenplay was pretty weak, so I guess they were trying to rely on the strength of its stars, but that strategy didn’t work out too well for them either.
You’d think I should have known better than to want to see this, but the truth is I do like Vince Vaughn, or at least I really did at one point. He’s sort of retreated into doing the same schtick over and over again, which has gotten quite old, but I’m always holding out for the hope of another Wedding Crashers or Dodgeball. Remember those were rather unexpected. Because it’s all gotten old, I’m that much more excited to see him in the next True Detective, mostly so he can branch out and remind me why he’s awesome. Cause right now, the memory’s a little hazy.
Dave Franco I’ve recently praised as the Franco brother who should handle the comedy. I still stand by that, but let’s not use this as an example. He commited to his role fully and maintained his awkward character, except every time he spoke, it dragged the whole pace of the movie down. Maybe he could have made some better acting choices, maybe the director could have reigned him in, or maybe the screenplay should have given him more than just one joke (that got increasingly more and more uncomfortable) to play off.
And poor Tom Wilkinson, how badly did he need this paycheck, or did he lose a bet? Was this his alternative to Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel since his character didn’t survive the original? I very much appreciate it when a legit actor tries to cut loose with a comedy, but he really should have picked something far worthier of his caliber.
I should stop now that I’m starting to get a little mean. I don’t like when I do that, especially since I know a lot of people worked very hard on the movie. But they can’t all be winners
Unfinished Business – \m/ \n”