The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard (now available on DVD) is not a good movie, though this is hardly interesting to note. There are lots of not good movies, particularly comedies which bomb at disproportionate rates, both in film and on TV (and certainly in this blog). What’s interesting about The Goods is not that it isn’t very funny, but why it isn’t funny, because for all practical purposes, it should be at least kind-of funny.
First, the cast is pretty funny. Jeremy Piven, Ed Helms, Rob Riggle, Alan Thicke (!). Though a cast is only as funny as their material, that’s at least a promising start. The screenplay is by Alan Stock and Rick Stempson, though how much share of the blame they deserve is hard to tell—bad comedies usually can trace their downfall to many, many hands mucking up potentially interesting ideas.
The concept behind the story is simple, and while it may be too limited to support a feature length film (even one clocking in at under 90 minutes), it should provide more laughs than it does. A team, coming into a struggling car dealership to help them move cars off the lot. That holds promise in two ways. One, it’s always funny to watch people who are bad at something, so seeing the car salespeople suck at selling cars should be funny. Second, selling cars is funny, as we’ve seen in many movies before this (I, for some reason, can’t help but think of Fargo—a different kind of funny to be sure).
There are many reasons the movie isn’t funny which need not be explored (such as, the fact that nothing funny happens). But as is often the case, looking at what isn’t funny in this film is a good way to better understand what is funny in other films.
Specifically, the reliance on sexual, gross-out/raunch-out humor is definitely one of the lamest elements in The Goods. From scenes in strip clubs, to dildo jokes, to uncomfortable storylines about people sleeping with people far older/younger than themselves—it’s all so very, very painful. One conclusion might bet hat this kind of 4th grade, sophomoric humor is inherently unfunny or that maybe I, your humble reviewer, am a total prude.
But of course, this same material in a better movie, could be very funny. Jud Apatow has built a comedic empire by tackling explicit material, as filtered through a never-ending stream of witty banter. Whole scenes of guys bullshitting about masturbation, pubic hair, oral sex—scenes that are both shocking and, more importantly, really funny.
So what’s the difference?
I think the key is, in an Apatow film, the characters are smarter than the punchline.
The humor comes from the way they take these crude (but essential) concepts, and then elevate them to the role of philosophy. For example, in 40 Year Old Virgin, Seth Rogen’s character poses the idea about a game where he takes Tylenol PM then sees if he can jack-off before falling asleep. The great thing about the game, he explains: “you always win.” It’s funny, not because Rogen is talking openly about masturbation, which we normally don’t discuss in polite company, but the way he’s talking about it—the elaborate scenario he’s crafted that brings an absurd level of intellectual reflection, to something that is the definition of base instinct.
But in The Goods, the characters are not smarter than their punchlines. The joke about the strip club is that they are in a strip club and women are dancing suggestively for them. The joke about the dildos is there is a woman who has a lot of dildos. The joke about the guy who just wants to “make love” to a woman is that we see him making love to a woman. The punchline and premise are identical. Or maybe there is no punchline. Or maybe it’s all punchline. What it isn’t is funny, unless you happen to be shocked and titillated by seeing strippers or dildos.
But who can be shocked by this stuff anymore?
Maybe little kids.
How cruel then, that the movie is rated R. It’s target audience is clearly so much younger.
Tags: review, sell hard, the goods live hard