Paramount’s The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard is, next to The Hangover, the funniest film of the summer. It’s unapologetically crass, irreverent, obnoxious, politically incorrect – pick the adjectives you prefer. It’s also, thanks to fine performances from a varied and idiosyncratic cast of characters – played with gusto by an equally idiosyncratic cast of actors.
Ben Selleck’s [James Brolin] used car business has seen better days and as the Independence Day long weekend approaches, his self-involved assemblage of salesmen are just as disconnected from even potentially selling anything. So, Selleck does what he has to do – he calls in Don Ready [Jeremy Piven] and his team of mercenary salespeople: Jibby Newsome [Ving Rhames], who has slept with many women but never made love to one; Brent Gage [David Koechner], the “numbers guy,” and Babs Merrick [Kathryn Hahn], who tells sad stories about her life and combines them with sex appeal to move cars.
Selleck’s badly-in-need-of-inspiration team includes Wade Zoonha [Tony Hale], the original afraid-of-his-own-shadow guy; Blake [Jonathan Sadowski ], Selleck’s one hotshot – who reminds Ready of someone; Teddy Dang [Ken Jeong], a mild-mannered Korean who will put up with a lot of $#!+ if it means selling cars, and Dick Lewiston [Charles Napier], the quintessential Ugly American – egocentric, hair-triggered and a bigot’s bigot.
Add to the mix Selleck’s ten-year old son, Peter [Rob Riggle], a kid in a thirty-year old’s body [pituitary condition]; daughter, Ivy [Jordana Spiro] whose biological clock is ticking, and wife Tammy [Wendie Malick] and you have one of the stranger combinations in film. Which brings us to “the bad guys…”
Paxton Harding [Ed Helms], engaged to Ivy and son of Selleck’s more prosperous rival, Stu Harding [Alan Thicke] wants the Selleck lot to turn it into a rehearsal hall for his “man band” Big Ups [they opened for O-Town once and it went straight to their heads].
While Piven is suitably coarse as Ready, he creates a character with undeniable panache. But it’s the supporting cast that keeps The Goods moving, especially Hahn, whose Babs has an unexpected fixation with all kinds of ramifications; Rhames, whose Jibby has the best love/sex gag in the film; Helms, whose Paxton is the ultimate “wrong guy,” and Jeong, whose long-suffering Teddy is just the latest in his collection of scene-stealing characters. Also, Brolin’s clever portrayal of Selleck plays against the typical Brolin role and he really has a lot of understated fun with it.
Briefly, then: Ready gives an inspirational speech that turn his flight to Temecula, CA into a mile-high orgy; a case of lust at first sight for Babs; a finicky DJ, and a bet that hinges one particular car. Director Neal Brennan keeps things rolling at a good clip and, though Andy Stock and Rick Stemson’s script does have a couple of dead spots, keeps the laughter rolling.
Unlike Adventureland and Funny People, The Goods is a balls-to-the-walls comedy – even the genuinely emotional moments are delivered in such a way that they are funny, as well. As a result, The Goods does indeed, deliver the goods. If it wasn’t or those dead spots [you’ll know them when you see them], The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard would be a classic comedy. Instead, it’s Used Cars for the new millennium – and that’s not a bad thing.
Final Grade: B