What the Fuck Happened to Vince Vaughn?

[This kicks off “throwback” week on Alabama Liberal. This week I will be re-posting the most popular items from the site’s first 7 months. I just go solely by whichever items had the most comments and am “re-sharing” them in a week that hopes to tap into some nostalgia while also finding new eyes for these items.]

All it takes is one look at his new movie The Dilemma to tell something has gone terribly wrong with the career of Vince Vaughn. When he first broke into national consciousness stealing every scene he was a part of in the cult sensation Swingers, he was lean, ruthlessly charismatic, and a little bit of an asshole. To quote his character—motor mouthed player Trent—giving advice to his sad sack buddy “Don’t be the nice guy in the PG-13 movie everyone is just rooting for to make it happen. Be the guy in the rated R movie you don’t know if you like yet because you can’t really figure him out.” Vaughn was the guy in the R-rated movie and now he’s comfortably stuck in PG-13 (or less) territory.

After Swingers Vaughn starred in a series of dramatic roles as bad guys and killers with many critics saying he was like a young Christopher Walken. The problem with that being that audiences never showed up for these movies, and Walken was always more of a sensational character oddity than a movie star. In the next big hit of Vaughn’s career, Wedding Crashers, he would play another motor mouthed player—a sanitized, harmless version of Trent—who was scared shitless of his casual fling’s father, none other than Christopher Walken. The whole thing could have been a metaphor for his career.

He touched base with the dark side of offbeat talent, and ran for cover in family films and generic comedies never to be heard from again. His downhill trek started with The Break-Up where he met real girlfriend Jennifer Aniston, who might carry mediocrity as a contagious virus judging by her effects on Jim Carrey after Bruce Almighty, Owen Wilson after Marlie & Me, and Brad Pitt, who was guest starring on Friends when they were together. No wonder Pitt had to ditch her for Angelina. The man had a career to save.

Vaughn has since starred in one broad, family friendly dud after another. Four Christmases and Fred Claus shamelessly pandered to the Christmas audience. Then Couples Retreat was a script written around an excuse for the cast to go on vacation. Finally we have The Dilemma where Vaughn is partnered with the lovable teddy bear Kevin James and is actually trying to stop the guy in the rated R movie (Channing Tatum screwing Kevin James’s wife). Vince Vaughn once played Norman Bates in a Psycho remake. In the span of a decade he’s gone from stabbing Anne Heche to death in the shower to a pudgy suburban dad starring in low expectation comedies with easy pay checks. If he doesn’t care about his career anymore, why should we?