JIM reviews film “THE GOODS: LIVE HARD. SELL HARD.” -- I’d call it The BADS: Write Soft. Laugh Weakly. =

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“THE GOODS: LIVE HARD. SELL HARD.” — I’d call it The BADS: Write Soft. Laugh Weakly. =

Rating: 4 of 10 stars (per an advance screening).

Partly because I don’t like purposely-“DUMB”, badly-written comedy, I found this lame film 1 small level above CRAP, mainly because of the WASTE inherent in it. Overall, it came across as sophomoric “FRAT-HOUSE” type humor that could’ve been better done by High Schoolers. It’s a SLEAZY, goes-nowhere, shoot-from-the-lip comedy where the overriding modus operandi seems to have been, throw together some apparently EGOTISTICAL purported “big name” stars, add in a bunch of insipid SEX-related dialogue, and you can create a film that treats the audience like a bunch of SAPS who’ll “accept” almost any sloppy, low-level type movie. As you can tell, I for one became more ANGRY than “accepting” at the “attitude” I got from this project.

The venture (produced & with a cameo by WILL FARRELL) gathers together a bunch of decent actors & made them exaggerated STEREOTYPES: the angry foul-mouthed old ex-veteran car salesman, the sex-obsessed tough saleslady, the “retarded” kid who looks to be 30 years old, the “secretly”-gay married car dealership owner (JAMES BROLIN) who keeps hitting on a salesman, the beat-upon Asian salesman (KEN JEONG), the “sensitive” black salesman (VING RHAMES), the snotty rich son of another car dealer (ED HELMS), etc.

JEREMY PIVEN stars as Don Ready, an apparently “hot-shot” genius car salesman. Supposedly to “convince” us of this, he’s given a scene where he gives a vapid PRO-SMOKING speech on an airplane that throws in a bunch of “freedom”-related comments that we’re supposed to believe “persuades” everyone on board (including the initially-anti-smoking stewardess) that he’s “right”, wherein they “cheer” him wildly as many people light up cigarettes. The film goes DOWNHILL (or up-in-“smoke”) from there…

The “supporting” actors do what they can with a badly-constructed script about “saving” a failing dealership by selling all the cars on its lot. This is the type of film that FAILS so badly, the makers may well try to use a nebulous false statement like claiming it’s “SATIRE” to try to “wish-away” the criticism. It won’t work with me!

I can understand when an inherently “noble” effort might not fully succeed, due to a lack of funds or certain abilities, etc. But, to me, there’s NOTHING “grand” in this effort: some in the audience chortled periodically thru the film; but I virtually NEVER laughed, because it struck me as a slap-dash piece of SCHLOCK that shouldn’t have been “green-lighted” to be made (rather than divide the money among some really DESERVING film projects). That may seem harsh, but the way this was done really made me upset. SAVE your money, Folks!