"The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard" could have been a very engaging experience for the art of selling cars. A car salesman, like the trusty insurance salesman and proficient civil attorney, is a hustler in his own right. He or she must convince the buyer of two things: that they're getting a good car, and that they're the right person for the car. If you can win a buyer with your charm, who cares about the merchandise your hoaxing them into getting? And so brings the comedy "The Goods...", with Jeremy Piven as our leading man. The three-time Emmy award winning actor from "Entourage" (and for you hardcore enthusiasts, "Ellen"), he doesn't quite have the Robert Downey, Jr. charm it takes to hold a flaky movie like this together. He's more of a supporting player. He is NO leading man.
The plot centers around him and a group of perverse car salespeople who decide to see if they can sell 200 cars off a lot in a short period of time. The purpose? More complicated then it seems, but really to impress a bunch of old rich white men. And to keep their jobs. Needless to say, we get plenty of scenes involving cars being sold, but not enough realism about the actual job. There's too much unnecessary sex jokes, too much scattered comedy for us to really invest in these characters.
If you want to see a good movie about selling things, rent "Glengarry Glen Ross"- an all-star cast playing sales people who must sell the most leads to keep themselves employed. David Mamet wrote the screenplay based on his play, and the movie stars Jack Lemmon, Al Pacino, Kevin Spacey, Alan Arkin, Ed Harris, Jonathan Pryce and Alec Baldwin (in a role he still can brag is his best).
There's a dumb subplot in "The Goods..." involving Piven and some wooden blond female he likes a lot. For what reason, I don't know- she has no interesting qualities other then her sexy lips. The only funny part of the movie involves two scenarios- one has a very old racist man trying to sell a car to a couple, and one has Will Ferrell falling to his death from an airplane. Oh, and two black women telling Piven he's too old to have a facebook account. That's about it. Ving Rhames has a thankless role of a man who is so stupid he has to tell a woman "Yesa ma'am, I do likes me a smart woman." Really? Is this how low the screenwriters have to sink- make the black guy dumb. Of course.
Big time waster.
The plot centers around him and a group of perverse car salespeople who decide to see if they can sell 200 cars off a lot in a short period of time. The purpose? More complicated then it seems, but really to impress a bunch of old rich white men. And to keep their jobs. Needless to say, we get plenty of scenes involving cars being sold, but not enough realism about the actual job. There's too much unnecessary sex jokes, too much scattered comedy for us to really invest in these characters.
If you want to see a good movie about selling things, rent "Glengarry Glen Ross"- an all-star cast playing sales people who must sell the most leads to keep themselves employed. David Mamet wrote the screenplay based on his play, and the movie stars Jack Lemmon, Al Pacino, Kevin Spacey, Alan Arkin, Ed Harris, Jonathan Pryce and Alec Baldwin (in a role he still can brag is his best).
There's a dumb subplot in "The Goods..." involving Piven and some wooden blond female he likes a lot. For what reason, I don't know- she has no interesting qualities other then her sexy lips. The only funny part of the movie involves two scenarios- one has a very old racist man trying to sell a car to a couple, and one has Will Ferrell falling to his death from an airplane. Oh, and two black women telling Piven he's too old to have a facebook account. That's about it. Ving Rhames has a thankless role of a man who is so stupid he has to tell a woman "Yesa ma'am, I do likes me a smart woman." Really? Is this how low the screenwriters have to sink- make the black guy dumb. Of course.
Big time waster.