I have to be honest right from the beginning, and say that out of the five movies I’m reviewing today this was the least good. On a technical level, maybe it’s “better” than Colombiana, but I didn’t like it as much. In fact, by the end of it, I was actively rooting for the main character to get decapitated so you might could say the warm/fuzzy/”everyone needs to do good and be good” vibe royally failed on me.
What Works: It’s always great to see Rashida Jones, even if the movie makes her into the world’s most unlikely lesbian by dressing her in weird, childish clothes for a lawyer (she’d have a hard time getting hired on Sesame Street wearing these get-ups). Fellow Parks and Recreation vet Adam Scott is pretty good in a couple scenes. And Elizabeth Banks is good as the middle sister.
What Doesn’t Work: The title character, played by Paul Rudd as a dishonest idiot. I say dishonest because Ned–the idiot brother–is actually a dickhead even if he thinks he’s really the nicest guy on Earth. There’s one scene late in the movie where Ned has essentially wrecked his three sister’s lives, and then explodes at them for being, you know, a little upset with him. He’s a selfish child and Ned’s greatest goal in life is to get back his dog Willie Nelson (said 5,000 times in the movie to substitute for actual comedy) even though he really has no place to take it. So once again, kind of a dick move.
Plus, I don’t buy the cynical Rudd (a truly limited actor who keeps finding work regardless) as this character, and it really starts to come off as phony the more the movie goes along. As for non-Ned related problems, Emily Mortimer strikes some sour notes as Ned’s oldest sister who actually doesn’t look much like the other three siblings (to the movie’s credit Rudd, Banks, and Zooey Deschanel actually could be related). But the script is just a mess and the movie has such a slack energy I can’t find a reason anyone would be able to watch this multiple times on end.
What I Would Have Done Differently: You have to deal with the problem at the center, Ned, before you can really fix the script, and this is the kind-of character that is so far outside anything I would create it’s hard for me to say a way to “fix” this movie without totally changing. In fact, let’s totally change it. Let’s take out Ned and make it a movie about the three sisters.