MYST Post #4: Delivery Man

This movie kind of stood out to me when I first saw the trailer for it a couple months back. With many people's obsessions over the recent finale of "How I Met Your Mother," in which Cobie Smulders stars in, and my liking for Vince Vaughn, I decided to finally watch this movie. It is about this guy, named David Wozniak, who is played by Vince Vaughn, who donated his sperm over 900 times in order to earn money about two decades ago. One day, a guy comes back to tell him that there was a mistake in the past and that he is now the father of 533 kids and 142 of them want to find out who their biological dad is and are filing lawsuits on it. In addition to this, Wozniak is in huge debt to a mob and also the father of another child in which his girlfriend refuses to let him be the father of because of his instability. Throughout the movie, he tries to make something of his life in which he finally discovers what he is capable of and how he can affect the lives of many. I thought this movie was very unique with its storyline, however, it wasn't as amusing as I hoped and was pretty predictable.

As I mentioned before, one of the main reasons I finally decided to watch this movie was because of the cast. If you hadn't noticed with my other post on The Internship, I'm a fan of Vince Vaughn and his comedic work. He plays a similar role in this movie, compared to his others, in that in most of them, he plays a character that is confused with what he should do with this life and seems to always have relationship problems. Cobie Smulders was another star or actor that caused me to watch this movie. She stars in "How I Met Your Mother" as the more responsible one of the group that was not part of the original group. She is the more serious one when it comes down to it and in some way, she seems to always have a guy that wants her. This is similar to the role in Delivery Man in that she plays this cop that is about to have Wozniak's baby. She is always calm and very serious when it comes to the future and about doing the right thing. Last but not least, Chris Patt, playing Brett the best friend, was another star that caught my attention. His role in "Parks and Recreation" is a bit different. In "Parks and Recreation," he was known as the guy that didn't have any responsibility skills and did everything on impulse. In Delivery Man, Patt plays a guy who has kids and is trying to tell David what he should do about the kids situation. This difference allowed me to be able to see the talent Chris Patt had in that he could play such different roles. The stars for this movie were the main thing that caught my eye and caused me to watch this movie, and I'm glad it did because I thought the casting for this movie was great. Most actors played their usual roles and if they didn't, they were able to execute them very nicely and show their talent.

The one scene that I remember the best is the one where Brett, played by Chris Patt, talks to David Wozniak, played by Vince Vaughn, about wanting kids. The scene starts off with a long shot of them having their conversation outside in Brett's backyard in the nighttime. We first see one of Brett's son walking towards the sandbox. This type of shot is used so that we could see everything occurring in the scene with both the kid and the two guys talking at the same time. It then cuts to a medium shot of Brett yelling at his kid to not sleep in the sandbox, but he does so regardless. This allows us to focus more on the details of Brett's face and emotion toward his child and the fact that he is holding another kid in his arms. The next part consists of mostly medium shots and jump shots for the actual conversation between David and Brett. This is used so that we are able to follow the conversation and see who's talking. It also allows us to feel as if we're right there with them in the conversation because we see everything that the other "non-speaker" at the time sees. Next, Brett's daughter walks in and just starts smacking his face and saying "daddy" repeatedly. This is personally my favorite part in the entire movie because I thought it was just so funny and in a way it reminded me of myself. Throughout this scene, the use of half dark and half light lighting is given off with the lamp in the background of the scene. It allows the scene to seem natural, but still adds a hint of mysteriousness while still being light enough as to not being scary. This scene was also kind of ironic in that David was saying how he wanted kids because he wanted order in his life and he thought this was beautiful even though Brett, who has kids, was drowning with dealing with them and questions his definition of "order."

If based solely on cinematic effects, this movie would definitely be lacking in it and be towards the bottom of most lists. The movie consisted of the usual medium shots for most of the movie, but included a couple of close-ups scattered around in order to show detail and add dramatic effect. One use of close-up was for when Emma, the girlfriend played by Colbie Smulders, grabbed David's hand during the family dinner. There were also the occasional long shots in order to show the scenery and location of the movie, or specific scene sometimes, like a view of the city or the park and sky. There was also the use of the classic panning a lot in which it follows the movement of one of the characters in a way so that it is like we are in the movie watching them. Another way Ken Scott, the director, made us feel included in the movie was the use of a shaky camera for the car scenes. It made it seem as if we were in the car with David feeling the same movements he did. Throughout the entire movie, it seemed as if only natural lighting was used. Most of the scenes were filmed outside in the daylight or inside with the light shining through the windows. This allowed for the movie to seem more realistic and relatable as to how events would seem or occur in everyday life.

Although I enjoyed the cast very much, the plot and cinematic effects of Delivery Man were lacking in their own ways. I was a little disappointed when the movie ended because I thought that the movie would get better, but it didn't. The overall movie wasn't very amusing, causing me to give it a 3.3/5 stars because of its great cast and occasional "laugh out lout" moments.