Comments: Welcome to disorganized crime
Summary: Progressing beyond their indie hit Swingers, Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughan return with Made, playing (respectively) Bobby and Ricky, long-time pals in Los Angeles. Failing as amateur boxers, they're recruited by their mob-connected boss (Peter Falk) to make what should be an easy delivery to an East Coast kingpin named Ruiz (Sean "P. Diddy" Combs). By the time they reach New York, Bobby's no-nonsense approach has been bulldozed by Ricky's hopelessly false bravado, which he's blithely absorbed from too many mobster movies. While Ricky invites disaster with reckless ambition, Bobby just wants a happier, legitimate future for his stripper girlfriend (Famke Janssen) and her neglected young daughter.
Made is an urban comedy that's sharper than its popular predecessor if not quite as appealing. Favreau and Vaughn make a hilarious odd couple of the underworld, and Vaughan's bullish performance--even as it grows redundant and deliberately irritating--is a raucous blend of stupidity and baseless braggadocio. Even more surprising is Combs, playing a thinly veiled variant of himself and providing some of the film's funniest, most authentic confrontations. As Favreau mines danger, humor, and pathos from carefully modulated scenes, the movie gains unexpected depth that sustains it through lulls of inspiration. And while Sam Rockwell, Bud Cort, and others pop in to spin gold in walk-on roles, Made continues to work its subtle charms, even with a tacked-on happy ending that arguably doesn't belong. --Jeff Shannon
Made
(2001)
USA
