3/10

The business world is a nasty one filled with rivals and “Unfinished Business”. Hard working small business owner, Dan (Vince Vaughn) and his two associates, Tim (Tom Wilkinson), and Mike (Dave Franco) start their own business after being rudely shipped from their jobs on the same day. The trio travel to Europe to close the most important deal of their lives. But what began as a routine business trip goes off the rails in every unimaginable way. “Unfinished Business” is a major let down and proof that even someone of Vince Vaughn’s charasmatic charm and stature needs help to get him back on the right track at this point in his career. This childish combination of penis humor (Literally) and obscurity of a plot isn’t something we should see from a trio of actors who could do better films in their sleep. At a bare minimum 86 minute film, the movie had me reaching for my cell phone several times as a result of juggled structure, and jokes that are repeated far too many times for even the most dedicated of film viewers. A movie like this should first and foremost be about the comedy, and that’s a big problem in this film. 95% of the comedy is shown in the trailer, resulting in a dry toned rest of the film that doesn’t blend very well during those extreme moments of penis showing in a men’s restroom, or highly offensive language that takes place during client meetings. It just doesn’t mix well with what Director Ken Scott (Delivery Man) had in mind. It’s funny that Scott directs Vaughn again after their exchange in “Delivery Man” in 2013, because the best parts of both movies are that of a dramatic side plot present in both films. In “Unfinished Business”, it’s the pressures of bullying that Vaughn’s son is going through at school. It pops up out of nowhere, but it was truly the most enjoyable part of the film for me, and i wish the film dedicated more time to a father searching for a solution while constantly away from home, and less about Dave Franco trying out unusual sexual positions on random women he meets. Franco is far and away the single worst part of this film. He plays a character that is explained in few words as “Mentally challenged”, and his performance is the first character that made me nearly sick in years. The movie wants you to believe this man is capable of running a lucrative company, while at the same time poking fun at his mental capacity acting like a five year old for seeing breasts for the first time. I’m sure i will come off as a film snob here, but shame on writer Steven Conrad for developing such a tasteless character. At first, i thought he was just a man child, but to find out in the second act that this character has legit problems and we’re supposed to laugh at it, made me sick. From worst to best, Tom Wilkinson is a breath of fresh air in this movie. It’s true that the longtime veteran actor is going against the grain in this kind of comedy, but he shows great timing while bouncing off of Vaughn’s straight man routine. I laughed two times during the film, and both were because of Wilkinson’s delivery on such a drebbel of a script. I mentioned the script being a mess before, and that’s mainly because it is trying to juggle too much at one time. We are flown back and forth quickly between locations before we can ever really grasp the storylines, or why our characters are in such a predicament. It all feels rushed as a reflection on it’s run time, and i think it tried to be something with higher class actors than it got. Relating that sentence is putting Sean Connery in EuroTrip. I’m sure it sounds like a riot, but when you actually have to sit down and watch actors who you grew up adoring fail to even garner a sympathy giggle out of you, then ladies and gentlemen, you have a recipe for the single worst comedy i have seen in 2015 so far. Vaughn enthusiasts will love it all the same, but i can’t recommend this film to any respectable reader of mine. If the title had anything to do with the production, then this is some business better left on the shelf and out of the public eye.