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"Made" is the directorial debut of Jon Favereau
(Very
Bad Things), who scored a hit with partner Vince
Vaughn when he wrote the comedy "Swingers" in 1996.
Here Favereau and Vaughn play Bobby and Ricky, two
buddies living in LA who are at their most childish
when together. With his dreams of becoming a
professional boxer crushed by a 5-5-1 record, Bobby
works for the local Mafia boss (Peter Falk) as a
bodyguard. He is hired to guard one of local hookers,
named Jessica (Famke Janssen), but he is more like a
jealous boyfriend than a protector. He doesn't like
that she subjects herself and her daughter to this
line of work and craves the opportunity to get her
out.
That opportunity comes when the big boss tells him to
go to New York City to pull off a job with a guy named
Ruiz (P Diddy, Puff Daddy, whatever the hell he calls
himself these days). Upon a request made by Bobby,
Ricky also gets to come and so they both head for New
York. Only once they get there, the unreliable and
irreverent Ricky is much more content on spending the
bosses money on girls and drinks while Bobby just
wants to get the job done with so he can go home.
"Made" is the best comedy of the summer. That means
about as much as the best needle in a haystack but
still this movie works almost solely on the fact that
it's greatly character driven. The relationship that
Bobby and Ricky share is loaded with differences
between the two. Favereau takes on the straight man
role with the noble Bobby while Vaughn goofs his way
through the crude Ricky role. But it's in the
differences that their chemistry forms. They profanely
bicker with one another whenever they get the chance
and the vulgar wit they both bring to the film is
absolutely hilarious.
The fish out of water humor that Favereau creates, in
which they are the only ones who don't know what the
job is, also gives them a good side dish to fall back
on. But that's also where a problem occurs. The story
plays side to their antics throughout the movie and so
we find these two characters being forced into the
actual plot too late for anything really funny to
happen. The final third of "Made" is rushed and
unfunny and actually makes an ill-advised trip into
the drama. "Made" also seems to steal lame jokes from
other movie's sometimes, but you gotta hand it to a
film that features "Saved By the Bell's" Screech.
Despite it's inconsistencies, "Made" is a very funny
movie that should be seen based on the two main
characters alone.
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