Made

Jon Favreau wrote and directed Made on the heels of the highly successful Swingers.  So it's no surprise that Favreau wrote nearly identical characters for him and Vince Vaughn to play in Made.  But instead of playing the dating game in Los Angeles, Favreau and Vaughn enter the world of organized crime in New York City. 

The script and the acting were large reasons for the success of Swingers, and the same tools are what give Made a life of its own.  The dialogue feels real and lends itself to efficient character development.  It doesn't take long for us to understand who Bobby (Favreau) and Ricky (Vaughn) are and what motivates them.  In only a few short scenes we see that Bobby loves his girlfriend Jessica and her daughter Chloe, and that he doesn't like what he or Jessica are doing for a living.  Not only do we understand this, but we believe it.  There is a great scene probably less than a minute long where Bobby cooks dinner for Chloe, and it's a wonderful little scene that pays dividends as the story comes back to Chloe later in the movie.

Ricky is hilarious, much like Vaughn's character in Swingers.  He is a ladies man who is quite talkative and selfish, but he also loves his best friend.  There is a small stretch in the middle of the movie where I was beginning to get tired of Vaughn's character.  The lack of self-awareness and considerateness were a bit too much.  But perhaps Favreau recognized that, because it's at this point where the movie gives us a rest from Ricky's colorful personality.

As the plot of the movie played out, it definitely held my attention and I was interested to see what would happen next.  But it is the characters that make this movie.  I cared about Bobby and Ricky, about their friendship and what was going to happen to them.  So as the climax of the movie comes and goes, the plot material was trivial compared to how the characters behaved and how the climax changed things for these two characters. 

The movie wraps up by showing us what happens to Bobby's relationship with Jessica and Chloe, and it's this scene that really makes this movie.  We see another side of both characters (Bobby and Ricky), but it's a side that we always knew was there for both of them.  It's a satisfying and heart-warming scene, which is impressive considering the movie is largely about these guys cussing at each other. 

Made - 7 out of 10