If Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn aren’t careful they will fall into the Adam Sandler category. That category asks the important question “Why do they still keep giving this guy money to make/star in such bad films?” Now, I shouldn’t blame it all on Stiller and Vaughn as there is enough blame to go around. Everyone involved in this mess is splattered with the awful smell of failure.
The yuckiness begins with the paper thin and basically ludicrous story of a bunch of very different guys who all live in the same part of town banding together to form a neighbourhood watch after a strange death at the local Costco (of all places).
Director Akiva Schaffer (Hot Rod) worked on writing the digital shorts on Saturday Night Live and the film feels a little bit like a bunch of skits just slapped together. Now doesn’t a film involving aliens, infertility, a parent trying to make a connection with their teenage daughter, men fighting, and learning life lessons sound well…bizarre? Nothing really goes together or flows. Worse than that it is rather bad and not often funny. There are some so-so laughs but never any full belly guffaws. Do be warned that the laughs really don’t have anything to do with the attempts at slapstick or witty dialogue rather the laughs come due to the usual Vince Vaughn and Ben Stiller shtick we’ve seen time and time again. The cartoon violence or lame jokes about penises earned no laughs from me.
Chalk this up as another film that did not need to be made.
