Who's In It: Vince Vaughn, Kevin James, Jennifer Connelly, Winona Ryder, Channing Tatum, Queen Latifah
The Basics: [Minor spoiler coming in about half a dozen sentences...] Winona Ryder is cheating on husband Kevin James. She's cheating on him with Channing Tatum. Vince Vaughn--Kevin James's best friend--sees Ryder and Tatum making out. So there's the dilemma. To tell or not to tell? And if so, when? And how? And what about James's own infidelity with anonymous female sex workers? Does that make Ryder's okay? Are they both guilty of wrongdoing? Do you trust this movie to tackle the issue with fairness and brains? Oh, that's not important? You just liked Couples Retreat and Paul Blart: Mall Cop a lot so anything starring these guys is fine no matter how thoughtless it all is? No, no, that's cool. I totally get where you're coming from on that.
What's The Deal: I saw this film a few days ago and I'm still baffled by it. So I'm just going to tell you now that even more spoilers are coming up. Like I'm going to spoil the ending. Therefore, you should stop reading if you want it to be a big mystery like Ron Howard's last two DaVinci Code movies, but I have to work this out so I can get on with my life. See, Ryder's character drops the bomb about James getting weekly...um... "rubdowns" from a variety of low-rent masseuses, and that's the moment when you think the movie is going to get complicated and interesting. Like maybe there's going to be messy reality and shades of gray and equal blame and a more sophisticated approach to how marriages really work. But nah, they just wrap it up and erase Winona Ryder from the film entirely and let James off the hook and give him a sweet job bonus and a paid vacation. This really happens. So that must mean the moral is that guys should go right ahead and get those sexy massages because they totally do not count.
Random Moments When It Feels Like A Movie You're Happy To Keep Looking At: Vaughn has a good handful of really funny sequences, moments where it seems like he's gone off-script and is just trying to inject some actual comedy into a film that's turned out to be a lot heavier than he imagined it would be, and way more than they've decided to sell it in the trailer. He's just the right amount of obnoxious, the way you've come to expect of him when he's in his comfort zone. Meanwhile Ryder gets all the best dark moments as the duplicitous wife, with some honorable comic mention for Channing Tatum as her crazy, self-absorbed boyfriend.
The Saddest Thing Of All: In spite of its bizarrely lopsided, Old Testament sex-punishment approach to human relationships, it's still a better film than anything the main cast members or director has been involved with for a long time.
Hardcore Latifah Fans, Take Note: She's as much an on-camera presence as Arnold Schwarzeneggar and Bruce Willis were in The Expendables.