The Dilemma [HD]

WARNING! This is NOT, I Repeat, This is NOT a Comedy!
Do you ever hear things through the grapevine that make you want to NOT like a movie? "The Dilemma" was one of those flicks for me. I heard so much bad stuff about it, that where I would typically want to watch it just to see how wrong everybody was, I actually didn't want to see it at all.

Quite frequently, problems occur at my local Blockbuster, where titles that are supposed to be on the shelf on a given day, aren't. So when this movie finally made it to the shelf 1 1/2 weeks after its release date (their excuse was that Direct TV bought out Blockbuster, and they were closing negotiation contracts with movie studios), it was the only fairly new release there on that particular day that I hadn't seen. So, I reluctantly picked it up.

First off, this was improperly billed as a comedy. WRONG! It's not even a dark comedy. I laughed all of three times, and only once out loud. It's all about soul searching and trying to decide how to do what is right in an almost...

Not the film it should have been.
Let's face it: Finding your best friend's wife is cheating on him, and then trying to tell him (and then trying NOT to tell him), isn't funny. A great comedic director could take that situation and turn it around, make the serious hysterical. Ron Howard, alas, is not a great comedic directer. He's a pretty darn good dramatic director, however, which ultimately hinders THE DILEMMA.

The problem is, the film isn't funny. Even when it tries, which it rarely does. At moments, the film achieves a certain poignancy that is touching; it examines the crevices of the buddy-buddy relationship (in a much more serious way than, say Judd Apatow usually does), and hits some disturbingly harsh notes. What is most frustrating is that the cast (yes, even Kevin James) is up for the challenge: Vince Vaughn has proven himself a dramatic actor in the past, as has Jennifer Connelly. James holds his own; in fact, when he's at his worst when he's trying for yucks. Winnona Ryder delivers a...

Boring
My boyfriend and I rented this movie the other night out of sheer boredom, boy, was that a mistake! There were maybe two scenes that made us laugh, the rest of the movie we yawned and just commented on how boring the movie is. I personally didn't like any of the characters, and the only one I felt some sympathy toward was Jennifer Connelly's. Queen Latifah had few lines and I think she was the funniest character in this movie. I am not a professional movie reviewer, but I would not recommend this movie to anyone unless you are planning to be bored.

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