Peter Billingsley, a good pal of Vince Vaughn and the legendary
Ralphie from A Christmas Story, has made a terrible feature
directorial debut with Couples Retreat.
One would think that casting Vaughn, Jon Favreau, Kristen Bell and
Kristin Davis would’ve gotten him comic gold. However, the film proves
that it’s ill-advised to send a bunch of swell actors to an island
paradise—especially when you have a shitty script. All you wind
up with is a bunch of slumming movie stars looking pretty and relaxed.
(Well, not so much “pretty” with Vaughn and Favreau, who often display
massive sweating through their T-shirts.)
Remember Club Paradise, the 1986 comedy in which Robin
Williams, Peter O’Toole, Rick Moranis and others headed to the islands
for a wacky comedy? Yeah, I didn’t think so.
Vaughn plays Dave, a high-income Guitar Hero sales executive
(dumbest movie job … ever!) in a humdrum marriage with his beautiful
wife, Ronnie (Malin Akerman). During his kid’s birthday party, friends
Jason (Jason Bateman) and wife Cynthia (Kristen Bell) give him a
PowerPoint presentation on their own failing marriage, and urge Dave,
Ronnie and two other couples—Joey and Lucy (Favreau and Davis),
and Shane and Trudy (Faizon Love and Kali Hawk)—to go on an
island vacation with them.
The catch: The vacation spot they’ve chosen has a rigorous
couples-counseling regimen that vacationers must partake in if they
want to enjoy the rest of the island. Nobody knew that the
couples-counseling stuff was mandatory, so therein lies some of the
comedy. Well, some of the wannabe comedy.
Things are actually OK when the action is on the mainland, but once
things switch to the island, the film begins its rapid disintegration.
There are lots of jokes about yoga instructors wearing Speedos and
dry-humping their students. For every amusing sequence—like
Vaughn getting doused with chum in the midst of a lemon-shark
attack—we get something like Favreau getting interrupted during a
masturbatory session, or Favreau sporting wood during a massage. Come
to think of it, much of the failed comedy in this venture can be
attributed to the normally reliable Favreau and his dick.
Bateman is starting to get typecast as the “tight ass” in comedies,
and that’s a shame, because the guy has range. (Just watch him in
Juno for proof.) Bell, Davis and Akerman also deserve better
than this. I will go ahead and give Akerman the award for Best
Performance in Couples Retreat. However, that’s like winning
Best Sports Car in a Rage-Inducing Traffic Jam During Rush Hour.
Vaughn is a remarkably funny man, which makes his appearance here
(and in countless other bad comedies) most disconcerting. His
résumé over the last four years, with the exception of
Wedding Crashers and Mr. and Mrs. Smith, is quite stinky:
Be Cool, Fred Claus, Four Christmases and now this
garbage. It’s as if writers and producers say, “Ahh … we’ve got Vince
Vaughn. We don’t have to worry about that dry, humorless patch in the
script! Vince will say something clever, do his fast-talking shtick,
and get us through to the next scene. Screw writing … let’s go drink
and party with hookers!”
However, Vaughn and Favreau were co-writers of Couples
Retreat, so they take the lion’s share of the blame this time
out.
Oh, look at that: Vaughn was also a producer of this thing, so I
guess we can just put all of the blame on him. It made some nice bank
on its opening weekend, so I’m hoping he takes a little break, finds
something worthy of his talents and quits wasting our time with
formulaic tripe.
This article appears in Oct 15-21, 2009.