everything you have heard about this movie is true.

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

Neal Brennan's "Hard R" entry into the market niche dominated by hits such as "The Hangover" (both the original and the sequel as they were the same movie) and "Bridesmaids" (anyone know if they are reshooting that and calling it "Bridesmaids II"?). The film's low marks on review sites reflects a feminized and politically correct critiquing public as much as it represents serious quality deficits in the film. This is not to argue the film always works. Most problematic is Kathryn Hahn's pedophile "Babs" whose interest in 10 year old boys is still not funny even though she is a woman. However other tropes work well. Ed Helms plays a middle age boy band aspirant - a very funny foil to Jeremy Piven's protagonist. The always entertaining Ken Jeong basically plays not-the-white-guy with an enjoyable ethnic isolation. The plot conceit - that this is the "Bad News Bears" if they were car dealers complete with training montages, pep talks and bickering individuals coming together as a team - also works well. It also achieves the bitter tone that recent films such as George Clooney's "Up in the Air" attempted. In short, not great but not as awful as it looks.

You know, a lot of my friends and work peers think I'm too hard on the movies. Too negative. That I don't just sit back, leave my brain at the door and enjoy the movie, because, you must realize, they've never hated a movie or had a bad experience at the cinema, ever. If they ran their own review site, they'd rate every single movie as 5/5 stars and you know what? They would be the studio's best friend and probably appear on more than a dozen movie posters with their stinking thumbs up. Despite all that, perhaps I might agree with them a little; perhaps it's time to lighten up a bit.So, I watched The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard and I have to say: why start disappointing my fans now? This movie sucked. It had such talent at hand, so many (enormously missed) opportunities for humor and the number one (Jeremy "Ari Gold" Piven) person to pull off the ultimate sale, not just for the poor car-customers in the movie, but to the audience that this movie is worth its ticket price. Not only could he sell an ice cube to a South Park character in hell, he couldn't even get into the top 5 for its opening box office weekend.We have somewhat smooth talking Don (Piven) leading a sales team from town-to-town to reenergize failing car dealerships, and since you know he never thinks about settling down, you then know exactly where this movie is headed.He lands in a no-nothing town in California, falls for an already spoken for daughter and works the closeted father into selling all cars on the lot in order to save the family-run business. Yes, that's right; they actually used a 1970s sitcom idea (mostly used in The Brady Bunch) for the entire movie.In this economy, say for the past 4 years, this should've been the ideal escapism. Again, they had tremendous opportunities for laughs, and went for either the obvious, juvenile humor or just let the moment pass with my mouth agape at the wasted scene. In addition, the fully booked cast, most of the regulars from movies like The Hangover mostly stood around and looked like they were improvising everything since they basically had no script to go by.I will admit, there were a few small laughs – mostly with Ferrell's cameo, but with what could've been PIven's huge break-through into starring roles – this role was made for him!! – even he looked bored. Or anxious to leave the lot and go back to HBO.Skip it. I'd almost rather have the used-car dealer lie to me than attempt to make me laugh.

Maybe I'm a bit spoiled because I saw this the day I rented Adventureland and The Hangover.I don't mind when a comedy uses gimmicks to construct a plot or tell a story but only if they're funny. I enjoyed Anchorman and every other Will Ferrell movie that did that, but the gimmicks in this movie aren't funny. Further more, these bits contradict each other and make the viewer confused. For example: There are 2 introduction scenes for Don Ready. Neither of which are funny but the second does develop his schtick.Even after it's been reiterated several times, and shown (on the airplane) how good of seller Don Ready is, why does he need a pep talk from his buddy before motivating the sales team? Why did the Ed Helms character come in during dinner and mention that he has to go to practice then leave with his finacee even though he was leaving for practice? I could go on, but let me say that the biggest problem is the movie should never have happened. Why would the owner of car dealership (who wants to get out of the business) make a bet that he could sell all the cars on the lot so that he can keep his dealership? Didn't make sense to me either.Neal Brennan should never direct again. The only thing I will ever watch that involves Neal Brennan is a new season of the Chapelle show.

Gone are the days when a comedy with a premise as simple as this, would have made me laugh uncontrollably at every instance of humour. It's either I've grown older and more cynical, or have totally lost my funny bone. I'd reckon that it's more of the former, as I still laugh just as hard when I revisit comedies done by the Zucker Brothers time and again, which measured by my personal yardstick, goes to show that the comedies these days lack a certain oomph. Watching this was a reminiscence of an era that I'm still missing, where comedies really gave audiences some bang for their buck with jokes that will send you rip- roaring.What filmmakers like director Neal Brennan would reckon is funny, is the constant dropping of F-bombs and turning everything possible into a sexual innuendo, be it hitting on the gays, or treading so finely on pedophilia, which I suppose to him is meant to be funny with a female cougar scouring quite unsuccessfully a boy who's trapped in a man's body.The flimsy plot on which the laughs are built upon, involve a used car business founded by Ben Selleck (James Brolin), who has seen better days, and is now threatened with foreclosure. His sales force, made up of the likes of a senile drill sergeant (Charles Napier) and a madcap korean (Ken Jeong rising to some prominence these days), spells doom especially when they lose customers more than keep and sell them something. Hence extreme times like this meant to engage an external, proved consultant, and that's Don Ready (Jeremy Piven) and his team of Jibby Newsome (Ving Rhames), Brent Gage (David Koechner) and Babs Merrick (Kathryn Hahn).Part of the fun here I suppose is how each character has to exorcise their personal demons and issues, especially with members of the Selleck family. For Don, it's the prospect of acknowledging a long lost son whom he had unknowingly left behind, and the wooing of Ivy Selleck (Jordana Spiro), who is engaged to boy band leader Paxton Harding (Ed Helms from The Hangover). Then there's Brent who has to keep Ben Selleck himself off his back given the latter's newfound sexual desire. Babs is trying to hit on man-child Peter Selleck (Rob Riggle), a 10 year old trapped in a 30 year old body. And Jibby just wants to make love. Right. Jeremy Piven also lacked that cocky charisma to have carried his character off, and unfortunately for him too that the last act have him moping and whining more than the cocksure seller that he supposedly is.There's nothing you won't already predict in the narrative as it unfolds and coasts along from joke to joke with its cardboard characters, some of which do work, but most falling flat on its face. Nothing surprising will turn up as you'll see all incoming development from a mile away, right up to the finale. The saving grace may just be Will Farell's uncredited appearance together with two gospel angels who don't mince their lyrics, but other than that, The Goods should have tried harder to live up to its tagline in putting bums on seats - I got an entire hall to myself!