Desperate laughs

>> Bunglers mess with the mob in Made

by MATTHEW HAYS

While watching Made I kept recalling one of Scorsese's non-mob movies, The King of Comedy, in vivid detail. In that film, Scorsesephiles will recall, Robert De Niro plays a fan so fixated on a famous talk-show host (modelled on Johnny Carson but played by Jerry Lewis) that he convinces himself they are good friends. There's a stingingly embarrassing scene in the film, when De Niro shows up, girlfriend on arm, at Lewis's estate, and said girlfriend realizes De Niro is completely deluded and has no real relationship with Lewis whatsoever. It's a horrifyingly uncomfortable scene of severe, abject embarrassment.

Made is a film that wallows in such moments. Favreau (who also scripted) plays a frustrated boxer who works as a handler for a stripper, who also happens to be his girlfriend. One night Favreau gets totally pissed at the party animals who won't take their hands off her, and belts one of them. The mob boss who runs the stripper agency (Peter Falk) tells Favreau it's game over, but Favreau asks for one more shot. He and his bungling friend, Vince Vaughn, are off to Manhattan to complete a mysterious deal.

The embarrassing bits are supplied to the hilt by Vaughn, who is an utterly incompetent, stupid slacker. Unable to accept authority, completely incapable of reading social situations for what they are, needless to say someone this stupid should not be placed in negotiations with hardened mobsters. But here he is, spending too much money, bringing prostitutes back to their hotel room and picking fights with anyone else who he deems beneath him.

Vaughn is alternately hilarious and cringe-worthy in the lead role, one that carries the film. The actor is best in broad strokes, unlike a film like the Psycho remake, where the nuances of sexual repression were completely lost on him. Made allows him the chance to play an asshole, an indignant, unlikable, repulsive asshole, something he does extremely well here. His role fills the screen so large, the only problem with this film is that it's perhaps a bit tricky to suspend our disbelief for Favreau's actions. Why would he put up with this dolt for so long? Still, it's a minor complaint. Made is painted with enough black humour as to make it a worthy off-kilter mob movie.

Made opens Friday, July 20