Vaince Vaughn in unfamiliar role

Running time: 115 minutes
Age restriction: adults only
Reviewed By Prof Joel White
Type of film; serious marital discord presented as comedy
The film “The Dilemma” will rise or fall in the viewers’ regard depending on the attitude previously taken to the antics of the actor Vaince Vaughn.
Now entering into his 40s, from a farming area in mid-western America, and with already 15 years as a Hollywood personality, he is always presented to us in roles that cannot be taken seriously.
And yet, in the current film, a member of the audience, seeing this actor for the first time, would certainly take him at his word, and would see in his role the film-length efforts of a man befriending his life-long pal.
And there we have the sine qua non of the characterisation. Ronnie (Vaughn) and Nick (Kevin James) have been friends since earliest school days. Given, in the film, his real life age, he is cohabiting, without marriage, with the serious, down to earth Beth (Jennifer Connelly). Ronnie is planning to propose to Beth next month on her birthday. At this point the audience has a good feeling about what’s going on.
Not only have Ronnie and Nick been friends for more than 30 years, they are partners and deeply involved in producing a revolutionary type motor car engine.
In having presented to me the prospective buyers of their invention, I have added to my fund of knowledge something I might be expected to have learned decades ago.
It was Walter – P Chrysler (1875-1940), born in the remote farm state of Kansas, who apprenticed as a machinist’s assistant, and rose to found the Chrysler Corporation, producer of the principal motor car brands Chrysler, De Soto, Plymouth and Dodge. Cars that, in years past, I myself owned and drove.
Drama takes over the screen when Ronnie, thinking about his own coming nuptials, happens to catch Nick’s wife, Geneva (Winona Ryder), having it off with another man (Channing Tatum).
For those who can take Vince Vaughn seriously (I am not one of them), the film evolves, deviating from the path we have come to expect, into one of spying and chicanery.
And loses me in the process.