VINCE DOESN'T DELIVER IN DELIVERY MAN

year: 2013 cast: Vince Vaughn, Chris Pratt, Britt Robertson, Cobie Smulders rating: *1/2 

If “Charming Lovable Loser” isn’t a film genre, it should be – Hollywood turns out stories centering on underdog slacker dudes by the dozens, and unfortunately Vince Vaughn, landing only a few decent gigs since gaining fame in the classic indie SWINGERS, is stuck in this particular treadmill…

Once the plot is revealed, about a guy whose past “donations” to a fertility clinic resulted in over 500 children... 142 of them seeking his identity... we don’t know too much about Vaughn’s troubled David Wozniak except he’s a really nice guy who loves his family, extended or otherwise…

Working for his father delivering meat, he’s as inept a driver as he is a boyfriend to a patient woman, pregnant with a child… one child… but he has many other problems...

For the first half, David keeps a guardian angel eye on a handful of twenty-somethings trying to make a living in New York City: including a junky, a struggling actor, a street musician and a professional basketball player… But once one particular kid latches on, in the form of an annoying young man named Viggo, the movie goes to pot… Or perhaps it was there already…

Chris Pratt plays Brett, a single dad who's not only David’s best friend but also his lawyer… And while Pratt tries way too hard to provide dry humor throughout, his performance is as lethargic as the second half of DELIVERY MAN, an uneven comedy immersed in hipster schlock rock and, once David faces his ultimate (predictable) dilemma, balancing a financial payoff and the love of his new family, the movie not only tugs at the heartstrings but yanks them out entirely.