In The Goods, which opens areawide on Friday, Jeremy Piven is Don Ready, leader of a team of hard partying mercenary salesmen (Ving Rhames, David Koechner and Kathryn Hahn) hired to keep a used car dealership from going into bankruptcy. While working his sales magic, Don becomes attracted to a woman(Jordana Spiro) already engaged to the biggest douchebag in town (Ed Helms). Because as everyone knows, smart and attractive young women in the movies always face a shortage of decent guys who want to date them, so it’s either marry a loser or become an old maid. But maybe, just maybe, Don will overcome the tragedy from his past and not only save the dealership, but also find a way to win the girl. That’s pretty much the extent of the formulaic plot. Luckily, this is a comedy, so while plot does matter, jokes matter more. And in that respect, The Goods has the goods. Some of the humor falls flat, but there are still an awful lot of laughs here. The excellent supporting cast helps a lot, too. ** 1/2
This article appears in Aug 12-18, 2009.
You are so right about movies like this hanging their jokes on the thinnest, most over-used plots. Its like putting a spoiler and ground effects on a 1987 Ford Escort. All the perfunctory crap in the world won’t hide the fact that it is still a Ford Escort.