The Ex - D

In theatres. 90 Minutes. PG-13.

With Garden State Zach Braff seemed to signal to the late X'ers/early Y'ers that they had a spokesman for their over-parented, over-medicated version of bewilderment, quarter-life crisis, and angst. He rode that success to increasingly large paydays for TV-series Scrubs (where he's consistently stellar on still the most original comedy on TV) and hook-ups with a string of starlets. Alas, that spokesperson position may be open again. While follow-up The Last Kiss had its moments and might be forgivable (with deference to the Lawyer's view), The Ex is not. The third outing from sometime director Jesse Peretz (his most notable work appears to be a pair of Foo Fighters videos) wastes a seemingly can't-miss comedic cast of Jason Bateman, Amanda Peet, Charles Grodin, Mia Farrow, and Amy Poehler on a romantic comedy that lacks both love and laughs.

Intelligent/funny slacker Tom (Zach) loses his chef position at a New York eatery by keeping it real with management on the same day his top-of-her-class lawyer wife Sofia (Peet) gives birth to their first child. They decide to take up daddy's (Grodin) offer to get Tom an entry-position at his ad agency in small-town Ohio. Tom's mentor is Chip Sanders (Bateman), a wheelchair-bound advertising guru who just happens to have cheered with and bed Sofia in high school (This would be "the ex"). Chip works frantically to submarine Tom and move back into the affections of Sofia. Meanwhile, Sofia is miserable as a stay-at-home mom with postpartum depression.
And that's the story. Bateman is just too mean to be fun as Chip. Braff is too arrogant and self-centered to be likable. Peet does her best with bagbalm jokes and ill-placed expletives, but this isn't a Farrelly brothers farce. And, if Woody Allen saw this in Farrow's future, honestly you can't really blame him. Ultimately, the film can't figure out if it's a farce, a traditional romantic comedy, or some wierd treatise on married life. At 90 minutes at least it was mercifully short. Truly horrible. D.