Who's in It: Luke Wilson, Owen Wilson, Eva Mendes, Eddie Griffin, Jacob Vargas, Seymour Cassel, Harry Dean Stanton, Kris Kristofferson
The Basics: Luke is Wendell Baker, a shiftless guy who sells fake IDs to Mexican immigrants in Texas. He goes to prison for this. After getting out, he's paroled to work in a broken-down nursing home, where he finds himself the foil for a couple of bad guys who run the place. For some reason, his girlfriend (Mendes) puts up with all this.
What's the Deal? Everything, and seriously, I mean everything — from its look to its vaguely stoner-ish, Shiner Bock attitude to the Willie 'n' Waylon soundtrack to the inclusion of Kristofferson to its own poster to the font of the title on the poster even — is like some little kid in 1978 running around going, "Hey, lookit me! I'm Smokey and the Bandit! Lookit!" Not that Smokey and the Bandit was a bad time at the movies or anything, but for some reason, the 1970s version of Burt Reynolds filming a love letter to his own charm seems less annoying than the Wilson brothers collectively doing the same thing.
Why I Still Can't Bring Myself to Hate It: Because it's not hateful itself. Being full of yourself and maintaining an "aw, shucks" attitude may be delusional, and making a movie about it that isn't all that funny or nearly as adorable as it thinks it is may be a wrongheaded thing to do, but at least it's not offensive. It wishes it was as sweet and smart as Bottle Rocket, the Wes Anderson movie from the late '90s that starred all the Wilsons. And that's an OK goal. So kicking it too hard would be uncool.
What's Good About It: Cassel and Stanton as mischief-loving horny old men who enjoy nothing more than hitting on teenage, tube-top-wearing, convenience-store clerks.