The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard User Reviews

• Play
• Add to Instant Queue
• Add

Every so often a movie comes around that makes you question yourself. You leave thinking "What in the hell did I just get myself into?" You think that a movie marketed as "From the Guys Behind Talladega Nights and Step Brothers" might have some credibility and would offer a decently funny comedy. Unfortunately, The Goods: Live Hard Sell Hard does not live up to any expectations and leaves you wanting your 90 minutes back.

The Goods revolves around a family owned used car lot run by Ben Selleck, played by James Brolin. We find out the dealership has run into tough times and if Ben cannot sell the remaining cars left on the lot soon, he will have to close the business down. Ben is forced to call in one of the best car salesmen, Don Ready, to help him out. Don travels in a pack with other salesmen, Jibby Newsome, Brent Gage and Babs Merrick. For Don, this trip ends up being more than just an average car sale. He ends up making discoveries not only about himself, but also those around him.

Look at me, I'm charismatic!

Bad does not even begin to describe how terrible this movie is. With a cast of Jeremy Piven, Ving Rhames, David Koechner, Kathryn Hahn, Ed Helms, Jordana Spiro, Ken Jeong, Rob Riggle and Craig Robinson, you might expect there to be at least a few good laughs in this movie. Even a cameo of a usually very funny comedic actor cannot help this movie limp itself along. The jokes are bottom of the barrel to begin with and often border on racism and sexism. A better director and writer might be able to do something with this concept, but Neal Brennan, Andy Stock and Rick Stempson are not among them.

Early on in the film there is a scene of Don Ready and his crew are traveling on a flight to help Selleck. When a flight attendant tells Read he cannot smoke on an airplane, he gives a speech to the flight attendant about how the past was a better time. Somehow his charisma is so great that not only does the rest of the airplane get behind him but they all start partying, smoking as well as having strippers and a mariachi band show up out of nowhere. Don Ready is so over the top that a bleak attempt to give him a sad back story fails. The viewer doesn't care about Ready's past as it brings no emotion to his character and just eats up screen time. Another scene involves him rallying the used car salesmen to the point that they assault their Asian co-worker in what ends up with them participating in a hate crime. Somehow, Ready miraculously convinces the man to forget about what happened in exchange for an extra percentage of the day's earnings. Babs wants to have sex with a 10 year old who has an adult body due to a thyroid problem and her attempts to get him come off less funny and just plain creepy, resembling more a child molester. Ed Helm's Paxton Harding comes off as a complete jerk and it makes us wonder how he is engaged to Jordana Spiro's Ivy Selleck. An ongoing gay joke throughout the movie also pays off to no avail and comes across as weird without any comedic effect. The only person I got a smirk out of was Craig Robinson as a DJ Request, a man who does what he wants. Too many of the jokes come off as forced; the viewer has no investment in any of the characters as they are from the cesspool of humanity.

Child rape is funny when he looks like a man. No, no it isn't.

In the hands of another director and writer, The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard may have been an average, somewhat funny production. Instead, we're left with a film that fails at every turn, wastes all the talent it does have, and goes for lowest degree of comedy possible. I chose between viewing this movie or The Cove before they expired from Netflix's Instant Streaming. I'm guessing I picked the wrong movie here. My mistake is your fortune. Hopefully this review will prevent you from wasting 90 minutes of your time - time you can never get back.