'Delivery Man' - Movie Review

Vince Vaughn has left the building. 

We need to face it, Vince Vaughn fanatics, our homeboy has gone for a wander. Yes, he's still playing the arrogant and immature jive-turkey, but he's lacking heart. In this Hollywood adaption of the 2011 French Canadian film, Starbuck, Vaughn plays David Wozniak, the loveable loser who wants to turn his life around for his underdeveloped love interest (Cobie Smulders). Of course, there's also a twist. There's always a twist. They just aren't usually this contrived and utterly ridiculous. The twist, which is wrapped-to-go in the tell all trailer, is that David has 533 children that he didn't know about!
   

David "Yo No Soy" Wozniak is a meat delivery man (surprise surprise) who is one day confronted by his dissatisfied girlfriend... and an attorney from a sperm bank. It appears David not only thinks with his penis, but he's actually used it for profit... at a sperm bank. There are two peculiar things about this film, and neither are all that important at the end of the day. The first peculiar fact is that one man can legally donate semen to a sperm bank over 600 times! (With a success rate that could help some flailing European nations.) Secondly, when David's biological children begin pressing charges to find out the identity of their father, there is not one mother to be seen. Not a one. It's quite baffling! Oh, and the stalking that ensues after David is given information on his children is slightly creepy and yet oddly sweet.
 
There is something about this film, that while being cliche and ordinary, is also touching. Vaughn's scenes with some of his less stereotypical and more quirky and disadvantaged children are heartfelt. One of my Dutch cousins was born without the ability to walk, talk, move or function like you and I take for granted. Now that my cousin has passed away, I tend to be moved when I see someone like Ryan (Sébastien René) - a similarly disabled young man - from Delivery Man. It's sobering to think that there are people like Ryan in this world. And it's probably Vaughn's finest part in the film when he interacts, albeit silently, with this young man. They didn't need to create a silver lining, nor have a "smile for the camera" moment. Some things in life are just tough, and cannot be fixed with a line or a smile.
 

But when it comes down to it, Starbuck's director and writer Ken Scott has failed to make Delivery Man a success. It's more impressive that Scott managed to stay on as director for this Hollywood adaption than the actual product is. We never really feel the tension behind David's financial and personal issues. And the court case of the 533 children against Starbuck? Well that's just meant to be farcical, right? Vaughn's quieter and more somber performance, however, leaves any laughs to a minimum and you have to wonder if another director (and writer) might've utilised the funny man more. In fact, Vaughn's male counterpart Brett (Chris Pratt) delivers more laughs as David's wonky yet quite ingenious lawyer and mate. Like The Internship before it - a film that Vaughn co-wrote - the comedy in Delivery Man flat lines, it tries too hard to connect with the youth of today and it really stretches one joke on for too long. About 2 hours too long!
 

Please, Vince, return to your Anchorman, Dodgeball, Wedding Crashers and The Break-Up days. Drop the family-mushy PG stuff and get back to giving blokes the shits and giggles. Sure, you weren't always "appropriate", but so what? Drop the montages and return to your jive-turkey ways. Remember that scene from Wedding Crashers, where you are eating breakfast and conversing with the old priest and Owen Wilson? That is you in your element. We implore you, come back to us.

But I digress. Delivery Man is patchy, cheesy and delivers a little bit of everything. Yet it's not nearly as funny - or entertaining - as Vaughn comedies used to be. If you've seen the trailer, then you know what you are in for.

5/10