Unfinished Business (2015)
Certified: 15
Duration: 91 minutes
Directed by: Ken Scott
Starring: Vince Vaughn, Tom Wilkinson, Dave Franco, Sienna Miller, June Diane Raphael, Ella Anderson, Britton Sear, James Marsden, Nick Frost
KRS Releasing Ltd

Vince Vaughn returns in another comedy drama as Dan Trunkman, a sales manager at Dynamics System in St Louis, the US. He sets up his own minerals firm, bringing in Tim McWinters (Tom Wilkinson), who has just retired as an accountant, and Mike Pancake (Dave Franco), who is a tad ignorant but is very eager to work.

One year later, things are not looking so smooth. Dan wants, or rather needs, to get a deal with Bill Whilmsley (Nick Frost). His wife Susan (June Diane Raphael) wants to send the children to a private school, so he needs the cash. Tim also needs the money in order to get a divorce. However, this deal will not come easy as Chuck Portnoy (Sienna Miller) is also trying to get the same deal and she is connected with Bill’s superior, Jim Spinch (James Marsden), which gives her an advantage.

The only option for Dan and his team is to go to Germany, meet the executives of the company and convince them they are the right people for the job.

Unfinished Business will mostly attract fans of the Vaughn mix of comedy and drama as he brings a lot of his usual characterisation and elements into the film.

The script by Steve Conrad brings the kind of comedy associated with corporate business and culture clashes, as these characters end up in Berlin where life seems to be totally different and morals somewhat more lax than in the US.

The film makes maximum use of these elements, such as when Vaughn ends up wearing the wrong skin-tight clothes or when the trio is introduced to the Berlin party lifestyle.

The film balances the comedy out by giving Dan some real problems apart from the business issue. His son is bullied while his sweet daughter becomes the opposite of sweet when in the company of her classmates. For once, Vaughn is not his usually dazed and confused lackadaisical screen persona; rather he has more energy and more character.

Miller, curiously named Chuck here, is competitive as much as she can be and she shows she can also be funny. Her role warranted a few more sequences. Franco is hilarious. He is so relaxed and so into his role that his performance is simply sublime. He plays his hand as if he were the most completely serious of characters, and yet all he delivers is one idiotic line after the other.

This type of performance, which the actor already presented in Bad Neighbours, will further raise his profile and make sure he will not be perennially known just as James Franco’s brother. Wilkinson is a bit too subdued for this film; he could have been given more in-your-face moments.

The film is directed by the Canadian Ken Scott, who is fresh off the success of the French language Starbuck (2011), which he remade with Vaughn as Delivery Man (2013).

Unfinished Business balances well the rude and raunchy elements with the sensitive and sweet ones. Thus, scenes of business meetings in a coed sauna contrast well with the parenting issues at stake, to make this a mix-and-match exercise.

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