Unfinished Business

by George Wolf

I can’t seem to remember any movies that have tried to mix glory holes and the G8 summit, and yet civilization has soldiered on. Unfinished Business tries that and several other things, failing at them all.

Vince Vaughn again finds trouble moving from ensemble player to top of the marquee. He’s Dan Trunkman, a sales rep in St. Louis who pulls a Jerry Maguire and leaves the firm to start his own after a public dust up with his boss Chuck (Sienna Miller).

Dragging his box of shame to the car, Dan finds his first two hires in the parking lot: beaten down sales vet Tim (Tom Wilkinson! What are you doing? Don’t you know you’re Tom Wilkinson!), and Mike (Dave Franco), an impossibly naive newbie who had just stopped in to apply for his very first sales gig.

Fast forward one year, and the trio is still using Dunkin’ Donuts as an office, but the deal of their lives is on the horizon. Dan assures his guys it’s in the bag, but they all need to travel to Portland, Maine to wrap it up. Once in Portland, of course, Dan finds his old nemesis Chuck is close to stealing the business, so the guys understandably head to…Germany, to get in completely contrived and ridiculous situations which rarely approach comedy.

What’s worse, director Ken Scott (Starbuck, Delivery Man) and writer Steve Conrad (Ben Stiller’s The Secret Life of Walter Mitty) also want to cue the tender music and get real. See, Dan is on the road just when his wife and kids seem to need him most, so the film offers tone deaf u-turns from tasteless gags with obvious punchlines into attempts at serious lessons on bullying and working too hard.

It’s a mess.

The one bright spot is Franco. Given little to work with, he crafts a character which at least piques your interest, and Franco continues to show the potential for some real comic talent.

Unfinished? This one should never have started.