What genre is this movie? That's the real dilemma - a review of The Dilemma

Every so often I, on a whim, pay to see a movie I have never seen nor heard anything positive nor negative about. In fact, these excursions are often on the kind of projects that I have heard no buzz about. Occasionally I discover true gem's using this process. Occasionally I see crap like Awake, and spend the next twelve months warning people off the movie. Well congratulations, this isn't a warn people off it movie. But it wasn't a memorable film either. You see, I saw this movie some eight or nine days ago. And I had all intentions to write a review of the movie. But I forgot the movie existed. Hell I forgot I even saw it. That's not a good sign. But I do remember walking out of the theater thinking if the film had made a decision it would have been stronger. Instead the film was half comedy, half drama. And the drama elements were all better than the comedy elements. in fact the film told me flat out that Kevin James is an actor who flat out needs more work as a dramatic actor. He steals this show, almost as much as Chantum Tanning(name correction later). Chantum does a fantastic job playing an asshole. And as the opposite end of the spectrum you have Kevin James who knocks it out of the park as a best friend. And here's the thing about this movie, it is one hundred perfect feels real. These aren't caricatures, these are people. They have reasons and dreams and logic and it is really fantastic the way it works out. I would love to look at the script because the four leads(Winona, Jennifer, Kevin, and Vince) really feel like a tightknit group of friends and so when someone feels betrayed you really see it and really see the pain these people go through. There is also some really dark issues at work here, some underplayed, some overplayed. But Ron Howard works his directing magic and pulls out something that wants to be so much more. For every element that works, there are three to four things that feel, not nessisarily wrong but, almost off. There are elements that feel under utilized or like they went in the wrong direction. And again,this movie makes you feel like Kevin James isn't used to the best of his abilities. Now on Vince Vaughn, he is very Vince here. But he is the least Vince he's been in a movie since Jurassic Park:The Lost World. And it's one of those things where he and Kevin both fall under the Joss Whedon law of Comedy. "If you can do comedy, usually you can do the other thing". or as Smallville put it "German Philosophy is easy, Comedy is hard." This is a movie that isn't bad, but it isn't great. It is just shy of recomended. Finally Queen Latifa will scare the pants off you with talk about her "Lady Wood." It's creepy.

So should you avoid this movie? No. Should you hunt it down? Not really. Is it worth a rental? Certainly. Some people will love this movie, but like me, most will forget the movie ever existed. So I give it a C.