With ‘Unfinished Business’, Vince Vaughn Can Kiss the Rest of His Career Goodbye

Vince Vaughn is the new Chevy Chase. Just look at his eyes: there’s the same look of desperation, the look of “what the hell happened to my career?” This look has been present ever since the former SNL star woke up from the waking nightmare that was his talk show and realized that audiences no longer enjoyed his particular brand of so-called comedy. With a string of flops that include notorious titles like Fred Claus, Four Christmases, Couples Retreat, The Dilemma, The Watch, The Internship and Delivery Man, he’s right on the border of being totally and completely done.

Unfinished Business may push him over into obscurity once and for all. After all, it’s been a decade since Wedding Crashers, and any goodwill he’s built up over the previous decades has long since dissipated. So what do you do when you sense your 15 minutes are at 16:01? Why, you re-team with the guy who guided your last disaster (Ken Scott) and pick a script so unapologetically unfunny that the writer (The Pursuit of Happyness‘s Steven Conrad) should be brought up on charges of masquerading as a comedy. Yes, this movie is that bad, but it’s also odd in a “could have been much better” kind of way.

That’s because Unfinished Business has an ace up its sleeve: a slow, mentally challenged ace named Dave Franco. Doing a defiant riff on his brother’s brazen stoner personality, his character is the only reason to suffer through this dire disasterpiece. Franco plays Mike, a former Foot Locker employee hired by Vaughn to be a salesman in his spin-off scrap metal firm. Seems our lead is angry that he’s been passed over for promotion yet again, and instead of dealing with his boss (Sienna Miller) again, he jumps ship. Striking out on his own, he brings forced retiree Tim (Tom Wilkinson) and Mike on board, and the trio struggle.

Vaughn’s Dan Trunkman also has issues at home. His son is awkward and overweight, meaning he is the bullying target of the 41 other kids in his class. His daughter is constantly wondering why daddy is gone so often, and his wife believes that a bigger paycheck (and private school) might be the answer to their woes. Suddenly, Trunkman’s firm is on the front line for landing a massive deal. Only problem? His old boss and her close friendship with the corporate negotiator (James Marsden) makes an agreement questionable. So the guys head over the Germany to convince the CEO, and while there, run into a sex fetish convention, and anti-G8 protest, and an affable Englishman (Nick Frost) who may be able to help.

Unfinished Business is like a juggler given too many divergent elements to manage. It wants to be a warm and winning family film. It tries to be an insider look at modern business deals. It struggles to be a comedy, and when it can’t find laughs in jokes, it decides that gross out antics and an abundance of male genitalia will do the trick. In fact, there is an entire sequence set in a Hamburg gay bar bathroom where unseen individuals introduce themselves via penises through glory holes. Yes, it’s humor as homophobia, the only novelty being that Vaughn attempts to avoid such hissy fits by talking his way out of a room full of wieners.

Then Dave Franco walks in, and all bets are off. This is one brave actor, grabbing at peep show junk to avoid falling, offering a strange “it touched my face” tagline to the dick slapstick. The truth is, the actor is so honest in his stupidity and so structured in his mindless malapropisms and social gracelessness that we’d rather watch an entire movie based around Mike than watch another minute of Dan frown and fluster over his kids’ lack of respect. Wilkinson’s Tim is no better. He’s playing a dirty old man, obsessed with divorcing his wife and hiring women to do “the wheelbarrow position” with him. Instead of being sly, it’s just sad.

Of course, had Unfinished Business found a way to work actual jokes into their narrative, we wouldn’t care how pathetic the respective parties are. Unfortunately, this is a film which thought up interesting backdrops for its bedlam and then forgot to add actual quips. Sure, a gay fetish convention is a beyond easy target, but at least Nick Frost gets it. He adds a few adlibs to his otherwise unfunny moments, providing both insight into his character and that Unfinished Business rarity: laughs. Similarly, Franco’s meek manchild can elicit a smile with a single word or clueless look. Imagine what might have happened had Scott and Conrad given him actual punchlines to work with.

The other affront here is the way women are treated. Miller, whose character is named Chuck (without explanation) seems to be a very shrewd businesswoman. We never learn more about her, though, since Unfinished Business isn’t in the business of fleshing out its female players. Mike meets a couple of women, and the most the filmmakers do is turn them into nudity-mandatory sex jokes. Even a business meeting set inside a co-ed sauna offers a chance to body shame an older lady. It’s as if this movie is purposefully trying to be unfunny, its timing so off and wit so absent that it’s almost hilarious because of it. Almost.

And thus we say goodbye to Vince Vaughn and his motor-mouthed smarm. It was a good run, and you even got to work with some excellent filmmakers (Steven Spielberg, Gus Van Sant). However, when the idiotic stock photos you are giving away for free as part of an internet PR promotion are far funnier than anything in your movie, you know it’s time to hit the showers. Unfinished Business did complete one thing: it ended Vince Vaughn’s career.