IMDb RATING
5.4/10
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A slacker is forced to work for his father-in-law after his pregnant wife steps away from her high-paying job.A slacker is forced to work for his father-in-law after his pregnant wife steps away from her high-paying job.A slacker is forced to work for his father-in-law after his pregnant wife steps away from her high-paying job.
Yaffit Hallely
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- (as Yafit Hallely)
Robert John Burke
- Colonel
- (as Robert Burke)
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6fudz
Jason Bateman shined in this average comedy featuring Zach Braff and Amanda Peet. Despite being in a wheelchair for the entire movie, Jason Bateman does a fantastic job making the audience despise his character Chip Sanders. Tom Reilly (Braff) moves back to his wife's home town to take a job working with his father-in-law. Despite his nice-guy efforts, co-worker Chip just won't let Tom feel like he's doing anything right. When we discover that Chip is actually Tom's wife's ex, Bateman's performance had me wishing that Zach Braff would strangle Chip in a fit of rage.
Zach Braff plays the likable main character who, just when you start to cheer for him, finds some idiotic way to disappoint you. I expected a little more from Amanda Peet after her hysterical performance in The Whole Nine Yards, but she performed solidly.
Jason Bateman proves in this flick just why he received so much critical acclaim for Arrested Development.
Zach Braff plays the likable main character who, just when you start to cheer for him, finds some idiotic way to disappoint you. I expected a little more from Amanda Peet after her hysterical performance in The Whole Nine Yards, but she performed solidly.
Jason Bateman proves in this flick just why he received so much critical acclaim for Arrested Development.
Just like most people who've written reviews for this film, I too was excited to hear about a film staring two great comedians like Braff and Bateman. How could you go wrong with these two? However, with two inexperienced writers and one inexperienced director; it's not hard to see where this film goes wrong.
The script is at times, very poor and extremely lacking in intelligent or deep humor, the characters are one dimensional and there are a lot of pointless and derivative scenes. There is no real chemistry between Braff and Peet and the soundtrack is somewhat lacking.
It's really awful to see such amazing talents go to waste in such a simple and shallow comedy such as this.
There are however, some great ideas in this film; the only shame is that they are not explored in their comedic entirety. Braff and Bateman are as usual, wonderful and do the best they can with the characters and the script they were given.
The script is at times, very poor and extremely lacking in intelligent or deep humor, the characters are one dimensional and there are a lot of pointless and derivative scenes. There is no real chemistry between Braff and Peet and the soundtrack is somewhat lacking.
It's really awful to see such amazing talents go to waste in such a simple and shallow comedy such as this.
There are however, some great ideas in this film; the only shame is that they are not explored in their comedic entirety. Braff and Bateman are as usual, wonderful and do the best they can with the characters and the script they were given.
A fairly amusing show where Braff's character deals with a co-worker in a new job that had had a thing with his wife in high school. This comedy doesn't bring anything new to the genre, but is a fair watch overall with some interesting elements.
The Good: Appropriate length, Fair acting, Great gag reel (after some credits start rolling), amusing overall, villain is mean, but doesn't cross the line- after all comedies are not about sadistic, truly evil villains. They are usually funny, selfishly misguided people, and Bateman fits the bill perfectly.
The Bad: Too much slapstick humor, had more potential, some scenes were unfocused and with no real purpose.
The Good: Appropriate length, Fair acting, Great gag reel (after some credits start rolling), amusing overall, villain is mean, but doesn't cross the line- after all comedies are not about sadistic, truly evil villains. They are usually funny, selfishly misguided people, and Bateman fits the bill perfectly.
The Bad: Too much slapstick humor, had more potential, some scenes were unfocused and with no real purpose.
Zach Braff and Jason Bateman in one movie, hell yeah! How can it not be funny? Answer: by getting poor writers that have no idea of what makes these actors great. I guess "Fast Track" technically is a comedy, but it's just one without punchlines, funny one-liners or well, wit of any kind really. There's a lot of drama in there, there's a lot of romance, there's a lot of Amanda Peet talking about poo, but somewhere along the line they stopped bothering to put in actual laughs. There are indeed some attempts at humor in this movie, but it's the kind of situational drivel you already sigh at when it comes up in sitcoms, let alone in feature films. The actors save what there is to save, but they can't exactly make it laugh-out-loud funny with this material. A disappointment.
Zach Braff ("Scrubs"), Amanda Peet ("Studio 60..") and Jason Bateman ("Arrested Development") help this little film just over the "average" bar. Even though their characters are pretty shallow, they put in a good performance and partly succeed in making you forget about the shabby script. There are a couple of funny moments, but without this cast the movie would have fallen apart, its strictly formulaic approach and lack of any inspiration just being too obvious. It's not as bad as "The Last Kiss", but Braff should choose his options more wisely, unless he wants his well-deserved Garden State acclaim to go down the drain.
Recommended only for fans of the above-mentioned stars, the rest of you is not missing out on anything.
Recommended only for fans of the above-mentioned stars, the rest of you is not missing out on anything.
Did you know
- TriviaCharles Grodin's first film role in 13 years.
- GoofsThe bag of burgers is from In-n-Out, which has no franchises anywhere near the scene's setting of Ohio.
- Quotes
Sofia Kowalski: [Abby March makes comment about how Sofia isn't a happy person and Abby thinks it's bad for baby Oliver] You know what I think? You're an idiot. And your son Petey... is a dipshit.
- Crazy credits"Harold and the Purple Crayon" by Crockett Johnson is published by HarperCollins, but the credits write it as "Harpers Collins."
- Alternate versionsSPOILER WARNING The version of the film on the Unrated DVD is drastically different than, and is in fact shorter than, the theatrical release. The plot point in which it is revealed that Chip was faking his handicap is never revealed. The following scenes are removed from the film:
- The hospital scene where Oliver is born and named.
- The scene where Tom plays basketball with Chip in a wheelchair.
- The scene between Tom and Chip in the locker room.
- The scene in which Chip reveals he can walk to Tom.
- The scene in which Chip reveals he can walk to Sofia, Wesley and Wesley's father. (This appears as an alternate ending on the DVD)
- The scene in Barcelona where Chip is at the Idea building. However, the Unrated version has several short new scenes including:
- A bizarre dream that Tom has.
- More of Amelia's Spanish speaking.
- ConnectionsFeatured in Siskel & Ebert & the Movies: Spider-Man 3/Lucky You (2007)
- SoundtracksDrinks for Two
Written and Performed by Paul Williams
Published by Cypress Creek Music (ASCAP)/Ocean Ridge Music 1 (SOCAN)
Courtesy of 5 Alarm Music
Details
Box office
- Gross US & Canada
- $3,093,394
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $1,394,229
- May 13, 2007
- Gross worldwide
- $5,178,640
- Runtime1 hour 39 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1
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