The Dilemma

Rather less fun than a badly executed coronary bypass.

Who ever thought that Ron Howard could make a cult film? This movie is a mess, but it's an intelligent and affecting mess.

But it's just way too uneven, too masochistically sexist and startlingly homophobic for the good to outweigh the bad. It is a movie I can appreciate for the attempt but roast over the coals thanks to its execution.

Vaughan's behaviour is so crass and silly as to lack credibility.

A comedy without laughs, and a drama without tension.

This collapses into comic mayhem, falling-out-of-trees slapstick, snore-bore misunderstandings and a sizeable distance between laughs.

Howard’s refusal to delete even one pointless subplot […] taxes the viewer after the third or fourth change in tone. When it’s all over, the viewer has trouble making sense of why some scenes were included or how the dilemma was resolved.

Masks much of its laugh-out-loud funniness with dark humor, subtle jests, and highly serious drama.

One can see hints of the brilliant dark comedy this film could have been.

Prepare to be annoyed by endless sports metaphors, but hey, at least there's Clint Howard in the obligatory weird-little-man role he has in all of his brother's films, so there's that.