Made review

Lifelong buddies Bobby (Jon Favreau) and Ricky (Vince Vaughn) are on the slow track to nowhere. Ricky sweeps up on a Mob-controlled building site while Bobby makes a few bucks driving his stripper girlfriend to stag nights. But when Bobby batters the groom's best pal for getting fresh, he owes one to aging Mob boss Max (Peter Falk), who orders him to fly from LA to New York, stay in a hotel and pick up a package. Simple, only Ricky wants to come too...

Even without the huge expectation heaped on the "next film from those Swingers guys", this is a huge let down. Swingers was a film full of wonderful characters where nothing really happened; Made is filled with unlikable cretins and still nothing happens.

The joke played out way too many times is that the principals are lifelong buddies, but Ricky is a total jerk. Why Bobby chooses to stick by him is initially confusing and eventually unbelievable, as his jaw-dropping stupidity keeps landing them in potentially fatal situations.

Once they hit New York, Made becomes Dumb And Dumber spliced with The Sopranos. And then they actually meet the Sopranos... sort of. Favreau cameoed in one episode, and here three regulars return the favour.

This was obviously a fun movie to make, but watching it is another matter. The leads bicker, fight and meet their contact - a self-centred, self-important ass played impeccably by Sean "Puffy" Combs. Then they bicker, fight, meet someone else and so on until Made vanishes up its own Indy, improvisational arse.

Made has the talent and the actors to have been watchable. If only they'd added a story, structure, jokes, pacing...