Vince Vaughn, Kevin James Seek Trust in Uneven ‘The Dilemma’

Rating: 3.0/5.0

CHICAGO – In many ways, “The Dilemma” is director Ron Howard’s most daring film. Leaving behind the usual brightly lit, good/evil morality tales, Howard weaves a narrative basket filled with infidelity, gambling addiction, blackmail and mistrust. This is Opie on the dark side, with Vince Vaughn and Kevin James along for the journey.

But The Dilemma, marketed as a comedy, has some problems. It is episodic, and the whole doesn’t equal the sum of its parts. The sequences live and die under Vaughn’s interaction with them, which results in a quest of bizarre and improbable circumstances. The story flow never gets a rhythm, and is plagued also with a deadly serious nature that doesn’t mine any laughs.

Vaughn is Ronny, a marketing guru for an auto design company that includes his best friend Nick (Kevin James). Nick is married to Geneva (Winona Ryder), and Ronny is currently dating Beth (Jennifer Connelly), who he met through Nick and Geneva. The couples are bonding as best friends, and Ronny is seriously considering asking Beth to marry him, despite past discretions as a gambling addict.

This happy world is turned upside down by an accidental encounter. While scoping out a proper proposal site, Ronny spies Geneva in the arms of another man (Channing Tatum). Ronny doesn’t quite know what to do with this information, as the timing comes just as he and Nick are working on a make-or-break design for a major car company. Nick is the nervous type, and Ronny feels that the project will be in danger if he passes along the news that Geneva is cheating.

Becoming obsessed with the situation, Ronny decides to take matters into his own hands, and confronts Geneva with his knowledge. In a turnabout, Geneva comes right back at him with a threat of exposing some damaging news about their past. The uncomfortable dilemma has now become even more desperate, as Ronny wrestles with what to do.

Couples Therapy: Winona Ryder (Geneva), Jennifer Connelly (Beth), Vince Vaughn (Ronny) and Kevin James (Nick) in ‘The Dilemma’ Photo Credit: © Universal Pictures

The film did have a surprising twist, as Winona Ryder’s Geneva goes a bit beyond the typical confronted cheater. In the unexpected scene that her and Vaughn have when she blackmails him, Ryder shows some liquid dark acting chops while making Ronny realize that she can make his life miserable as well. Although this leads the film into other territories, it doesn’t help the so-called comic angle at all, and casts a pall over an already uncomfortable situation.

Also to its discredit, the film gave its characters high concept reactions to simple and more discreet real life elements. Ronny’s obsession with the cheating, although applied as loyalty towards a friend, seems to go beyond what a person would do with such a situation. This extreme lends to the choppiness of the flow, with a make-it-up-as-it-goes-along process, rather that a feeling of a human story. Another example is a inappropriate toast Ronny gives at a special event, funny on the surface but also very unlikely to happen.

Kevin James becomes a background prop in all this, and his ticky, schizophrenic performance has no real compass. He is painted as a somewhat shy loser, but on the other hand likes to go to obscure places in Chicago to get massage “services.” This is part of the tsunami of justifications for the cheating that Geneva exposes, but it doesn’t fit in line with how the James character would operate, given some previous scenes of his nervous, insecure nature.

Queen Latifah is shoehorned in as an auto executive, who simply provides outrageous support to the design team, which for some reason is supposed to be charming. It was strange to see her in what turned out to be a cameo performance, punctuated by constant reference to her “lady parts.” Any third rate character actress could have hopped on board with this limited line reading, this stunt casting actually ended up being annoying.

Zip It: Channing Tatum in ‘The Dilemma’ Photo Credit: © Universal Pictures

Despite having some inspired scenes – the fight between Vaughn and Channing Tatum (Geneva’s boyfriend) had a cold, funny resonance – director Howard seemed to be unable to decide whether this was a comedy or a dark vessel into human folly. Had he chose one side or the other, it probably would have been more successful.

Movie stars like Vaughn and James can’t go too dark or they risk their images. Feelings like jealousy, obsession, addiction and lust under the surface of this film was blithely reconciled with a well-timed Vince Vaughn comic monologue. But given what was attempted in The Dilemma, this time it just didn’t fit.

[15]	By PATRICK McDONALD [16] Senior Staff Writer HollywoodChicago.com pat@hollywoodchicago.com [15]