The Goods: Sell Hard, Live Hard

Movie: The Goods: Sell Hard, Live Hard

I saw it on: August 21, 2009

Cast: Jermy Piven, Ving Rhames, Kathryn Hahn, David Koechner, James Brolin, Jordana Spiro, Tony Hale, Alan Thicke

Genre: Comedy

Synopsis: Ben Selleck (James Brolin) has a used car dealership in Temecula that is about to go under.  As a last ditch effort to save the dealership, he calls in a crack sales team led by Don Ready (Jeremy Piven).  His team of four travels around to czar dealerships and saving them by boosting sales any way they can. Don can get anybody to do anything.  On the flight to Temecula, he talks the flight crew into letting everyone smoke.  Their mission: to sell every single car (and there are over 200) on the lot in three days.  Don has no limits in what he will do.  He brings in a DJ, strippers, aerial support and uses a riot for publicity.  Things get complicated for Don when he falls for the owner’s daughter (Jordan Spiro).

My two cents: This was a pleasant surprise – I almost did not go to see it.  I am glad I did - I really loved it.  The jokes come so fast that it was hard to keep up.  And some of the jokes are really tasteless (which made sense when I found that Will Ferrell produced it) – but not tasteless in an offensive way.  Charles Napier plays one of the salesmen.  Charles Napier has been a character actor as long as I can remember.  He usually plays a rock-jawed military-type.  I thought he stole the movie.  Whenever he was in a scene, I braced myself, waiting to see what he was going to say/shout.  I got a kick out of Alan Hale breaking away from his Arrested Development character.  Kathryn Hahn played a sexy, slutty member of Don’s team.  Her mission was to get the owner’s 10-year-old son into bed.  Not as creepy as it may sound.  Definitely a different direction from her grief counselor character on Crossing Jordan.  She was another one that I looked forward to seeing on the screen, because I knew something hilariously inappropriate was going to be coming out of her mouth.

Last but not least.  There is a surprise appearance by Will Ferrell in a scene that will remind WKRP fans of the famous Thanksgiving turkey giveaway episode.

If you don’t get offended easily by a little crudeness and nudity (Don always likes to have breakfast in strip joints) you should love this movie.