No.297 : Wingman Inc. (2015)

Wingman Inc. at the IMDb

The battle of the sexes is explored, or at least brushed over in this lacklustre, alleged comedy.

For some reason the titles have photos of the cast as children which then morph into their current, non-recognisable personas. Our hero Bobby is a dog psychiatrist which involves him talking to a dog on his sofa. He gets a call from his landlord seeking his rent and he announces to no one that he has loads of debts. He does have prospects however, in the shape of a night out with his friends and his plan to propose to his long term girlfriend.

The night out with the friends finishes early as he finds them both hook-ups, foreshadowing the rest of the film. Bobby is so nice and non-threatening he can convince women to cop off with his sleazy friends. His world falls apart however when his girlfriend rejects his proposal and leaves the restaurant with another man.

Sunk into depression we meet up with Bobby 3 months later on the sofa with his stoner flat mate. He has a comedy beard and his pals think he needs to get back out there - especially as they haven’t gotten laid in like three months. Meanwhile in reaction to sleazy men chatting up women in bars a lady has started a service designed to send men away, mainly by suggesting they have small dicks.

Bobby’s friends are happy to pay his rent if he finds them women and they convince him that setting up a Wingman business would be a better use of is time than being a doggie shrink. With two opposing businesses in view, Bobby and the lady inevitably meet when she brings her anxious dog for therapy. What will happen when they find out that they are at opposite ends of the dating spectrum and will the spark that is developing between them become something special?

This was a terrible cheap and nasty film that was well dated in its attitudes and set dressing. Clearly here was no budget at all with the ‘bar’ being a curtain, a poster and a couple of chairs. It looked like a student film in places and wasn’t helped by cack handed direction and editing.

There were no laughs at all with some of it downright offensive - women called lesbians for not falling at our mens’ feet for example. The men were all ass holes but the women were all nasty bitches too, so there was no one to root for.

The whole ‘Wingman’ premise was dubious with our hero basically being a whoremaster and pimp. The lead was as wet as an otter’s pocket and like a poor man’s Jim Halpert. I didn’t manage to spot one good performance, apart from the dog that managed to yawn on cue.

Overall this ‘comedy’ didn’t raise a smile and, as social commentary, you’d get a more balanced view from re runs of ‘The Benny Hill Show’. The ‘will they - won’t they?’ romance was plain tiresome and the ‘growth’ around emotional maturity and respecting others was just irritating.

At least the film closed with 'funny' outtakes running over the credits - Good of them to let us know that there was at least some footage not worthy of the final cut,

Best Bit - Taking the Library Books Back Late ‘W’ Rating 7/23

No.239 : What Now (2015)

What Now at the IMDb

The other night I watched ‘Deep Impact’ and it was funny to see how the fledgling internet was shown with the marvels of search engines a wonder to all. That film was from 1997 and has dated poorly, but not as poorly as ‘What Now’ will have in the next 20 minutes - and it was made in 2015!

I suppose the producers would say that it captures the zeitgeist of the moment but when a film is hung entirely on online dating apps you can tells it’s not going to get a place in the National Archives. To be honest, it has dated already with Ashley Madison talked about as a going concern. Someone also references Miley Cyrus’ ‘Wrecking Ball’ so there’s another zinger for the folks in 2525!

The film concerns five LA single blokes who are trying for love online. They mostly work in a strip joint so you think there would be the odd woman there but they are ore interested in the ‘swipe right’ kind of ladies. They are presented as a mixed bag of personalities and types but they come across as assholes to a man.

The lead is DJ who works as the strip joint DJ - imaginative naming there. He’s in his 30s and keen for love but for some reason for a guy in the music and stripping businesses he’s a bit shy. He confides in his friends who are all similarly unattached and unsuccessful with the women. After a night of swiping hundreds of ladies they get no matches and decide something has to change.

Sadly the film has no ambition to rehabilitate its characters so one shaves his head and they take new profile pics before broadening their search beyond Hollywood and hey presto - dates! They all take the first girl available with predictably mixed results. One gets an S&M loving MILF while another gets one who is clearly mental as she’s a vegan and spots him as a jock.

Meanwhile a group of girls are also on the dating hunt and rating our men. Can love be found and will our men’s’ shallow approach pay dividends or will they need to see woman beyond a 2-D image to find true love and happiness?

This was a gawd awful mess of a film but I have to confess its terribleness was strangely compelling and I stayed through to the end to see what facile fates our heroes were granted. The old standard of the macho man inadvertently dating a transsexual was rolled out along with many other dating nightmares no doubt designed to get the hen nights cackling at the men’s inadequacy.

To be fair there are plenty of nightmare woman too from the socially responsible nightmare to the moody goth ; but they are all caricatures except for the lovely girl who balks at our hero’s strip show job but we hope to see back to give us all a hope of dating redemption!

The acting is terrible and you get the impression the whole affair was done with favours and cameos from the director’s softball team. One chap ‘Richard’ has the worst English accent you’ll ever hear and the rest have all the charming small talk and chemistry of an SS guard. For some reason Ice-T  shows up as himself and you can only imagine he walked onto the wrong set and earned a credit as a result.

It’s certainly not a film to track down, or even one to watch if you have put off the ironing for a couple of days, but if you are semi conscious and it shows up late night I wouldn’t say you have to turn it off. Fainter praise than that I don’t have.

Best Bit : The worst (at acting) English rock group ever.
‘W’ Rating : 7/23

No.184 : Wandering Eye (2011)

Wandering Eye at the IMDb

You’d think after our experience with ‘Web of Lies’ that we would be avoiding Canadian made for TV films but that’s quitting talk here at the 100+ ‘W’ Movies Quest. The premise of this film involves murders against a backdrop of cheating spouses using the titular web site. Don’t look however if you are after some titillation - this film is so tame that even the word ‘whore’ is obscured by a car horn!

Our heroine is Maren, an attractive redhead who is married to a trainee doctor. She doesn’t work and is upset that’s she’s not getting enough in the bedroom despite the poor sod working all hours to keep her in lattes. She confides in her douche bag friend who offers to deliver her the goods, so to speak. She doesn’t fancy this poor bloke, despite letting him pay for dinner, and instead seeks her sleazy thrills on the internet. We know this isn’t a good idea as a cheating couple seen earlier in the film were shot by an unknown assailant. Be careful Maren, you slut!

She logs onto the titular titilation site and soon meets up with a man in a hotel room. True to form she doesn’t put out and to cap his day off the bloke gets shot when Maren leaves. The cops aren’t too slow on the case and soon two detectives, who used to be married to each other, are teamed up on the case. They manage to link the deaths to the ‘Wandering Eye’ website and with the help of their bookish computer geek programmer they manage to establish how the bad guy is finding his targets.

Troubled by her conscience and possibly her lack of nooky, Maren goes to the cops and they set up a sting operation to capture the killer. Will it be one of the likely suspects such as the man fingering his gun or the troublesome ex-friend who wants paying for that expensive lunch? Surely it’s not going to be the least likely candidate possible, someone barely seen and with no discernible motive? Could be!

To be fair this was a bit better than ‘Web of Lies’ but it shared many of the same failings as that film. The plot was as linear and undemanding as possible and the three acts wouldn’t have been more obvious if sign posts had been erected. That said the lead character’s motivation was unclear as she never really looked at all horny or interested in the poor blokes whose time she chose to waste. I didn’t recognise any of the cast but I see that the lead, Amanda Righetti, has an ongoing role in ‘The Mentalist’ which I don’t watch. She was wooden throughout but was quite fetching in her black bra and panties.

The detection angle was minimal with too long spend setting up red herrings which made the big reveal seemed rushed and unearned. The production wasn’t exactly lavish with the action minimal and stars non existant. There were the usual slices of web-fu, with a couple of key strokes answering all the questions and some very tame sex scenes which wouldn’t worry you if the vicar appeared midway through your guilty viewing.

Basically this is a ‘does what it says on the tin’ TV movie with nothing invested in the script or indeed production, leaving a half baked and unsatisfactory product. That said you will see worse - we won’t ; TV movies about computers are joining made for DVD werewolf films on our banned list!

Best Bit - Dress Try Ons
'W' rating 10/23