Wonderful Movie

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Here's my question: why isn't Zach Braff more successful? To me, he's got "it"! But then again, maybe he's too big for television, but not big enough for the movies. At any rate, I liked this film, although it wasn't "great"...just "good".In it, Zach and his wife (Amanda Peet) move to Ohio after Zach loses his job as a chef. In Ohio he can work for his father-in-law's firm...a rather yuppy-ish ad agency. Zach is going to be mentored by his wife's ex-bf, who is now a "cripple" (as Zach calls him)...or is he? The "cripple" is played by Jason Bateman, and his character is doing everything he can to sabotage Braff and steal his wife.Braff is very good here as the just a tad bit goofy husband who all too often works on hunch, rather than knowledge. Peet is a good balance as the wife. I personally don't see what others see in Jason Bateman, but he does fairly well here. Charles Grodin plays the father-in-law, and is good for the part. If Frank Sinatra ever wondered if Mia Farrow was a good actress...well, this film would have convinced him...she's not. There are also small parts for Amy Poehler and Fred Armisen.In terms of the story line, there are a couple of criticisms, though minor. First, when his car was gone...twice, why didn't he call a taxi instead of riding a bicycle (well the answer is that a bike is funnier...although not practical at all...who would do that?). And, maybe they make Braff's character just a little bit too much of a disaster at work.Nevertheless, this is an entertaining film and I enjoyed it. Nothing special...just good.

Zach Braff and Amanda Peet play Tom and Sofia, a young couple about to welcome their first child into the world. Unfortunately, they're going to need an income very quickly since she's left her job to become a full time mom and he's just lost his job as a chef. So he goes to work with her dad Bob (Charles Grodin) at a wacky advertising agency, run by mellow dude Don Wollebin (Donal Logue). Almost immediately he realizes he has an enemy in his new supervisor, Chip Sanders (Jason Bateman), a paraplegic who has designs on Sofia (with whom he once had a sexual fling).This is one of those cases of solid performers bringing life to less than stellar material. It's all pleasant enough, even in its unrated incarnation (it's never really that nasty or raunchy), but it's also patently predictable. At best, it may induce some smiles, but it never does produce belly laughs. It creates some very mild chuckles with the way it takes jabs at modern motherhood and Toms' new workplace, but doesn't ever kick into a high gear. It's up to the actors to sell it, and they do, up to a point. The stars are likable, as are their characters, and you can't help but feel some sympathy towards Tom as he tries to expose a physically disabled person as being a scumbag - which, of course, makes HIM look bad.Lots of familiar faces here: Mia Farrow (as Sofias' mom), Fred Armisen, Bob Stephenson, Josh Charles, Marin Hinkle, Paul Rudd, Robert John Burke, Romany Malco, Amy Adams, John Benjamin Hickey. Lucian Maisel is appealing as neighborhood kid Wesley, whose talent for stuffing whole burgers into his mouth is exploited by Tom. It's especially nice to see Grodin again, as at this time he hadn't been in a feature film for 13 years. His son Nick plays the small role of Summers."Fast Track" a.k.a. "The Ex" is the kind of thing most people would probably watch once and then forget.Five out of 10.

The movie is 88 minutes. The special features adds 15 minutes at least and offers 3 alternates endings. Thus i understand why i got the feeling to watch a slapdash movie. It have been produced with a tag-line and the idea have been difficult to gather. In fact, the movie is really slow to start and when the funny moments arrive, it's too late.It's a pity because the American movies criticizing work life are scarce. If "Devil wore Prada" wasn't really about the real workers, here, the work environment is unfortunately ridiculous (a hippie boss and a cunning colleague). The only good thing is the typology of the cast: the old bunch (Farrow, Grondin), the young team (Peet, Braff) and the newcomers (Bateman, Adams). Amanda is a cool mother and a responsible wife and it's great she doesn't loss her smile with years.

"The Ex" is one of those movies that you expect to be a little-known comedy gem. Its cast, including Amanada Peet, Zach Braff and Jason Bateman, are all very talented. But there's good reason it was a straight-to-DVD release. It's not funny.Its biggest problem is with characterization. Zach Braff plays the everyman, which is good casting because Braff plays the everyman with a comedic touch quite well. So well, in fact, that we connect to him. He wants to treat his wife well, work hard, and impress his in-laws. We want him to succeed just as much as he does. But then we start finding out that his wife (Amanda Peet) has no likable qualities and continues to force his life into hell, his in-laws of course are completely stubborn, and his co-worker (Jason Bateman) is a competitive back-stabbing ex-boyfriend of his wife. Obviously things don't go well for our hero, and they don't go well for the entire course of the movie.For this to work as a comedy, we need to understand our hero's connection to his wife, we need to see that there's a way in to connect with his in-laws, and we need to know that other characters see what the ex is really like, but the writers didn't give us any of that. Instead we have to sit there while our hero, who is essentially us, is being tortured for no good reason and with no way out. I certainly wasn't laughing.