The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard

Jeremy Piven is hired to sell cars for a struggling dealership in "The Goods: Live Hard Sell Hard."

In the film, Piven plays Don "The Goods" Ready, a smooth talking car salesman and leader of a crack team of car mercenaries played by David Koechner, Ving Rhames and Kathryn Hahan, who is hired by Ben Selleck (James Brolin) to help ramp up sales during Fourth of July weekend.

Led by Ready, the team travels to the quiet town of Temecula and are given three days to sell 200 cars off of Selleck's lot, but during the mission, Ready falls in love with Selleck's daughter Ivy (Jordanna Spiro) and his crafty skills at selling cars are put to the ultimate test as he attempts to make a success out of the three-day weekend.

The film was directed by Chappelle's Show creator Neal Brennan, and produced by Will Ferrell and Adam McKay's Gary Sanchez Productions. McKay who has also gave a classic "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby" (some may disagree with me on this) and an absolute bomb "Stepbrothers."

I would rate "The Goods" as average, if best. Piven was great as the wise-cracking, street smart Ready, more known for his work as Arlie Gould on HBO's "Entourage", Piven steps up in his first lead role and delivers the comedy in this performance.

I even liked Will Ferrell's cameo as a parachutist Abraham Lincoln, trust me it's hilarious, he was more funny in this cameo than he was in "Stepbrothers."

On a side note, as Ferrell lost a step in delivering great comedy, first there was "Anchorman", then "Talladega Nights" and then the film quality slowly began to diminish from "Blades of Glory", "Semi-Pro", "Stepbrothers" and "Land of The Lost."

His decline is almost equivalent to Adam Sandler, who made a comeback this year with his performance in Judd Apatow's "Funny People."

(Well moving on) But like "Stepbrothers", "The Goods" just didn't have that strong comedic spark as "Talladega Nights", the story featured a lot of disturbing angles that were trying to make you laugh but didn't and at times was reaching for jokes like the reference to "Pearl Harbor" and how the salesman attack the lone Asian salesman played by Ken Jeong (The Hangover).

And at times, quite a few to be exact, the film was more cheesy then funny, like Ed Helms who was great in "The Hangover", but in this film plays Selleck's son and aspiring man bander (men thirty years old who joins a boy band and refer to it as a "man band").

I'll admit, what made curious about the film, was the fact that if all things Piven goes on to promote this movie, was being the host of Monday Night RAW. During his time as host, he was threatened by Randy Orton, caught in mid-air after jumping off the top rope by John Cena and Jeong was body slammed out of the ring by Cena.

So in all, I would say "The Goods" is a good used car, ready to be driven off the lot, but not even close to a brand new car.

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