Wednesday, August 19, 2009

He's Got The Goods, For America!!!

Is there anything more to say about The Goods, a comedy about car salesmen starring Jeremy Piven and featuring Ed 'The NardDog' Helms, Tony 'Buster Bluth' Hale and Will 'I'm in Every Movie' Ferrell, than it's laugh out loud funny, pretty vulgar and just as quotable as SuperBad, Anchorman or even Stripes? Well, there may actually be a little more to it.




Directed by Neal Brennan of 'Chappelle's Show', I found the movie actually has some nice social commentary on the current American economic state. From Don Ready's patriotic speech on board an airplane in which he invokes the Apollo moon missions and 9/11 in an attempt to convince a stewardess to allow him a cigarette, the film is deeply rooted in a sense of pride and can-do eagerness that can only be defined as American spirit. Don loves all things that are comically American like used cars, karaoke, breakfast at a strip club and having a catch with your son who is not really your son. But in between the jokes, there is a tale of redemption for Ready. The story focuses around a car dealership about to go under and while it is never specifically stated that it is due to the recession, most audiences will quickly identify and empathize with a failing family owned business. When nothing seems to work, Ready and his crew of cutthroat salesmen are called in to help sell the metal. And move the cars they do, using a variety of unethical schemes from airing television ads in which the dealer himself claims to be dying, booking a relative of a D-list celebrity to appear and turning a full scale riot into free air time on the local news. It's no accident that the three day sale takes place over the Fourth of July weekend as Ready motivates and inspires his melting pot staff of grizzled veterans, Koreans and strippers to appeal to the customer's hopes and dreams. While the thrill of the sell is a pure adrenaline rush for him, he also understands that selling the cars gives each customer a little bit of hope and is a small dream come true for each of them. Sales may be his first priority but getting someone in the car they want is a close second. Personally, Ready struggles with the death of his colleague who was killed, appropriately enough, plummeting to his death in an effort to promote a huge sale in Qurque. His irresponsible lifestyle catches up with him and he finds himself wanting something so simple that he takes it for granted he could ever know a normal life again. When it seems that he has lost his way and everything he knows and loves is taken from him, he finds his closure from the pain by getting back into the game and intent on going down swinging. In the storybook end, he gets a rag tag bunch of losers to believe in themselves and reach their goal of selling all the cars off the lot. It is because of his tenacious, take-no-prisoners attitude that Ready and the other salesmen can overcome the huge obstacles in front of them and jump start the dying dealership.




Don Ready is the kind of man that America needs right now to recover from its slow economy. With the willingness to fight, a little creativity and genuine pride on one's job, we too can get the country back on track, sell every single car off the lot and smoke this one for America!

3 comments:

Unknown said...

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Fletch said...

I think you put more thought into your review than the makers of The Goods did while making it.

I didn't think it was a terrible movie by any means, but it's awfully hit or miss (with the misses outweighing the hits) in the comedy department, so in the end, it's a failure. It's just a failure that'll make for decent repeat viewings on TV, thanks mostly to its deep cast and the occasional hilarity, like the commercial you mentioned.

Big Mike Mendez said...

It certainly doesn't merits repeat viewings, but for a throwaway little comedy, it was decent enough for me. It had enough laughs to cover the gaps where there were none.