'Unfinished Business': Comedy with a depressing theme

Photo: Jessica Miglio / Jessica Miglio / 20th Century Fox

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When work associates Mike (Dave Franco, left), Tim (Tom Wilkinson) and Dan (Vince Vaughn) attempt to seal a crucial deal, things start to go awry in Unfinished Business.

Photo: Jessica Miglio / Jessica Miglio / 20th Century Fox

'Unfinished Business: Comedy with a depressing theme

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The world keeps intruding on Unfinished Business, the actual world that the filmmakers are too honest to deny. A supposedly rollicking comedy about a sink-or-swim business trip, the movie cant keep out a depressing awareness of modern-day corporate culture and what it does to people.

In theory, of course, its possible to make a comedy about anything Charlie Chaplin, after all, made a comedy about Hitler (The Great Dictator). But Chaplin did it by making fun of Hitler, by making the monster funny (though still a monster). Unfinished Business is set against a background in which business is genuinely soul-killing, not funny at all. Yet were expected to forget about that, selectively, and laugh at the diverting antics going on in the foreground the usual spectacle of idiots abroad getting stoned, having s*x and getting into trouble.

We do laugh, but we never forget. Thats the weirdness of Unfinished Business as an experience. Theres something wrong with it, or wrong with the world, or maybe both, but theres definitely something wrong.

The bad feeling starts in the first scene, in which Vince Vaughn, as a top salesman for a company selling metal shavings (or something like that), finds out that his pay is getting cut 5 percent, take it or leave it. After arguing with his smug and implacable boss (Sienna Miller), he decides to quit and venture into business as his former boss competitor. On the way to his car, he hires Tim (Tom Wilkinson), who has been let go for hitting the mandatory retirement age, and Mike (Dave Franco), a mentally challenged young man who is in the movie for comic relief.

As Dan, a good guy just trying to do business, Vaughn is his usual fast-talking, smart-mouthed self, but here that radiant confidence is at risk from the beginning first from a pod-people business environment, and later from power players who inflict pain and sow anxiety for the fun of it. When he goes to Portland to finalize a pre-negotiated business deal, he finds the deal up for grabs and has to chase it all the way to Berlin.

The movie creates a real atmosphere of anxiety around the business deal, which is an achievement. Yet at times, its a counterproductive achievement, when were then expected to relax and release into the comedy as when Vaughn accidentally finds himself in the midst of a business deal while wearing womens running clothes. Theres no standing on the outside and laughing at it. No, were in it, right there with him, feeling the embarrassment.

Still, grounding the movie in real stakes pays off when the scenes turn serious. Theres a very good one in which Vaughn follows a high-powered German vendor into a steam room, and she wont even discuss business until the Puritan American takes off his clothes. Another scene, in which our hero finally gets to pitch directly to the top man, has an air of authenticity, largely thanks to the calm assurance of Uwe Ochsenknecht.

But what are we to say about a comedy that makes you walk out feeling lousy, thats like a parade of beaten virtue and (mostly) sadistic power? Maybe this is the comedy that business deserves. Maybe its good to feel lousy, even if that wasnt the movies intention. Or maybe this is just a slightly better than mediocre film with a disconcerting grasp of the truth.

Id say the latter but would talk no one out of seeing Unfinished Business, just so long as you know what youre getting into.

Mick LaSalle is The San Francisco Chronicle movie critic. E-mail: mlasalle@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @MickLaSalle

Unfinished Business

Comedy. Starring Vince Vaughn, Tom Wilkinson, Dave Franco and Sienna Miller. Directed by Ken Scott. (R. 91 minutes.)

Source: http://www.sfgate.com/movies/article/Unfinished-Business-6116812.php