Disc Reviews

Delivery Man Review

• 6th Jun 2014

Over the past few years there have been a few comedies that deal with fertility, pregnancy and the deflation of the alpha male. These characters are not the moustachioed macho Tom Selleck of Two Men and a Baby, but instead we’ve been entreated to Seth Rogen’s kidult who has to grow up following a one night stand in Knocked Up (2007), nearer still to Delivery Man is Mark Rufalo’s character in The Kids Are Alright (2010) in which two sperm donors try to bring their father into their life, as well as perhaps the best of the bunch in The Switch (2010) which sees Jason Bateman who offers to be the sperm donor to his best friend (Jennifer Aniston) whom he is secretly in love with. And then there is the French-Canadian film Starbuck (2011) about a man who finds he has a lawsuit against him from 142 kids who claim that they are a man’s sons and daughter following his sperm donation some years before. Now reading the synopsis or storyline to Delivery Man you could be forgiven that this new release has the same story. You’d be right. Both films are written and directed by Ken Scott who is able to go out to town with a bigger budget and a big cast than the small Canadian film.

The film opens in a butchery in New York with 40-something David Wozniak finding that his life is spiralling out of control: he is $80,000 in debt to loan sharks, his marijuana plants have all died, the t-shirts he has made for the family basketball team all disappear when the family business truck is stolen and he is told by his girlfriend that he is a loser, oh and that she is pregnant. Basically he’s a loser and a slacker with little going for him. His best friend is a father of four kids who neither respect nor listen to their father, but David is jealous of this and wishes that he could be so lucky to have kids and be a father. His friend also happens to be a somewhat failed attorney and informs that he has through sperm donations in his youth sired some 500 kids, 142 of who want to sue for the right to know the identity of their biological father. Against his friend’s better judgement he pursues and tries to anonymously get to know as many of these kids as possible, all now in their late teens and early twenties. They cover the canon of ‘types’: geeks, arrogant wannabe actors, a basketball star, a suicidal teen student, a black girl, a militant vegetarian who finds out the truth of his identity and blackmails him unless he comes and stays, a gay man and so on. All bases are covered. This is where the comedy changes course and borders on farce interrupted by the usual music montage that one would expect from a feelgood comedy.

Vince Vaughn of course has made his career out of feelgood comedies of this nature with varying degrees of success, but none are outstanding. In this sense Delivery Man is no different. The viewer can’t help but think the film has such a current storyline, one pertinent to many people and doesn’t go that extra mile and have some deeper meaning other than the mileage that can be gained from the situation. Still the film is harmless fun and is intended to be released in time for Father’s Day with few surprises but sadly fails to deliver (pun intended, sorry).

There are a handful of extras on the disc including bloopers (thankfully not tacked onto the closing credits as was common practice for films of this type), a deleted scene and a handful of extras on the Blu-ray but omitted from the DVD.

Chris Hick