One year ago, Congress defunded public media. Now that we're 100% community funded, please become a sustaining member or increase your existing membership today.
This is an archival story that predates current editorial management.
This archival content was written, edited, and published prior to LAist's acquisition by its current owner, Southern California Public Radio ("SCPR"). Content, such as language choice and subject matter, in archival articles therefore may not align with SCPR's current editorial standards. To learn more about those standards and why we make this distinction, please click here.
Movie Review: The Dilemma
The Dilemma
This weekend America faces The Dilemma, a new purported comedy starring Vince Vaughn and Kevin James. The boys play best friends, James the happily married to Winona Ryder man and Vaughn the bachelor who is practically married to Jennifer Connelly, but scared to take the next step guy. The smug, married couple spend the first half of the movie encouraging Vaughn to pop the question and the second half berating him for not knowing how hard it is to be married. They could both stand to look at their own marriage and leave Vaughn alone.Poor Vince Vaughn, just when he thinks he will propose to his girlfriend of multiple years, he catches his best friend’s wife with another man. Should he keep it to himself? Or should he stalk her, confront her, threaten her, beat up the guy she’s seeing and stalk his best friend, all while keeping his girlfriend in the dark and making her think he’s once again succumbed to his gambling addiction? (Oh, yeah, and he’s a gambling addict who apparently put Connelly through hell two years earlier. Why is she with this guy?) Obviously, Vaughn chooses the second option, which all plays along with a subplot (extended car commercial) involving the auto design firm he owns with James trying to score an account with a big company.
Director Ron Howard said on a talk show recently that The Dilemma came about after a friend of his though he’d seen Ron’s wife with another man. Turns out it wasn’t her, but it got the guys to asking, what would you do if you caught your best friend’s wife cheating? In real life, it led to one guy building up the nerve to break the news to his friend, only to find out that he was mistaken. Then there was a sense of relief, a few laughs and a happy ending.
In The Dilemma, there’s no such luck. No laughs. No happy ending. Wait, there are happy endings in this movie. The massage parlor kind that you’ll want to think about one of the characters getting almost as much as you’ll enjoy hearing Queen Latifah’s character, the auto executive, repeatedly refer to her “lady-wood.” Ick. Thought the cast is packed with fan favorites, it’s hard to like any of the characters. What’s worse, the most uplifting dialogue in this movie is Vince Vaughn quoting from the 2004 hockey drama Miracle. You might want to check and see if that’s on Netflix before heading out to see The Dilemma.
One year ago, Congress voted to defund public media, eliminating a critical $1.7 million from our budget every year going forward. But they couldn’t silence us, and we’re not going anywhere. LAist is now 100% community funded and that means we’re taking our future into our own hands and turning to you to keep local reporting strong.
You come to LAist because you want independent reporting and trustworthy local information. Our nonprofit newsroom doesn’t answer to shareholders looking to turn a profit. Instead, we answer to you and our communities. We are free to follow facts wherever they lead and to hold power to account without fear or favor. Our only loyalty is to our readers and listeners and our mission: to inform, engage, and strengthen Southern California’s communities.
If this story helped you, please become a monthly member today to help sustain this mission. It just takes 1 minute to donate below.
You come to LAist because you want independent reporting and trustworthy local information. Our nonprofit newsroom doesn’t answer to shareholders looking to turn a profit. Instead, we answer to you and our communities. We are free to follow facts wherever they lead and to hold power to account without fear or favor. Our only loyalty is to our readers and listeners and our mission: to inform, engage, and strengthen Southern California’s communities.
If this story helped you, please become a monthly member today to help sustain this mission. It just takes 1 minute to donate below.
Senior Vice President News, Editor in Chief
