2011
100 minutes
rated R
by Scott Mendelson
I'm not going to do a full-on review, but there are a few things I'd like to touch on. First of all, the film isn't nearly as bad as many other critics seem to believe, nor is the film nearly as lurid or distasteful as its been advertised (I rather hate the above-poster, but there were no other one-sheet designs to choose from). In terms of what it's about, it's actually a classical western, in that it primarily concerns the struggle between untamed freedom and orderly civilization. The film is not as crass as 'gee, I'm shackled to a family while my friend gets to run around boning chicks'. At its best, the David Dobkin picture hints at a simpler truth: that there are pluses and minuses to every sort of life we choose. What makes the picture work better that it ought to is that the screenplay by Scott Moore and Jon Lucas (who also wrote the smarter-then-expected Ghosts of Girlfriends Past) gets at the heart of the matter: Two best friends, one with everywhere to be but no time to be there, while the other has all the time in the world and nowhere to be.
