Last summer, Vince Vaughn was a wedding crasher. This summer, he’s a relationship crasher.
In Wedding Crashers, Vaughn was hilarious as a self-centred, wise-cracking lout.
In The Break-Up, he’s still a self-centred, wise-cracking lout, but the charm in such a combo wears thin quickly.
It’s not ‘Vaughn-the-actor’s’ fault, because he is still the master of the rapid-fire rant and few people play a loveable rouge with as much ease and conviction.
The problem lies with ‘Vaughn-the-writer.’
In his character Gary Grobowski, Vaughn — who conceived the storyline for The Break-Up — has created a rather unsympathetic man with a Peter Pan complex. Gary doesn’t want to grow up.
He doesn’t want to be responsible.
He’d rather play video games, watch sports on TV, drink his beer and make love to his squeeze, Brooke Meyers (Jennifer Aniston).
When The Break-Up opens, Gary and Brooke’s relationship is already on a downward spiral. A simple argument about lemons and dishes ends up with Brooke vowing to end the two-year, live-in relationship.
Just one problem.
Brooke and Gary are joint owners of a condo, which neither is prepared to turn over to the other.
Things get nasty when Brooke and Gary try to share a condo without actually cohabiting.
Initially, the things Brooke and Gary do to annoy each other are funny in a kind of The Odd Couple way, but things quickly get nasty in a nod to War of the Roses.
To the credit of everyone involved with this film, The Break-Up doesn’t wimp out with a typical Hollywood ending — it just breaks apart before it gets to its conclusion.
(This film is rated PG)
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