Owen Wilson is not one of my favorite movie stars, and I usually go out of my way to avoid films that he appears in. But You, Me and Dupree has been sitting on the Employee Recommendation shelf of my local video store for over a month now, and since I’ve had pretty good luck with the films this particular employee likes, I finally gave in and rented the DVD. It turns out I didn’t like the movie, but it wasn’t because of Wilson. In fact, I thought the role of annoying friend was perfect for him, since that’s precisely what he seems to be. There were just other problems with the script that no amount of acting could overcome.
Plot summary (with possible spoilers): Carl (played by Matt Dillon) and Molly (Kate Hudson) are newlyweds who are getting ready to settle into their new lives together. They seem to be the perfect couple who can laugh and have fun together, and their future definitely looks bright. But then things start to go downhill when Carl’s best friend and best man from the wedding, Randolph Dupree (Wilson), loses his job and needs a place to crash. Carl brings him home, and Molly reluctantly says that Dupree can stay — for a few days.
This leads to scenes that show us just what a terrible houseguest Dupree is. He sleeps on the couch in the nude so that Carl and Molly are treated to a view of his bare ass when they come down the stairs in the morning, he causes the toilet to overflow, he has parties and invites strippers over, and he starts a fire in their living room. But, in typical fashion for movies of this sort, for every bad thing Dupree does, we get a scene that shows what a good heart he has. So we see him playing with neighborhood kids, cooking nice meals for Carl and Molly, and filling in for Carl when he can’t make it to Career Day at Molly’s school.
The situation at the house goes back and forth like this for a while. Then, faced with increasing pressure at work because of Molly’s dad and at home because of Dupree, Carl goes off the deep end and runs away. Dupree then becomes instrumental in getting Carl to realize how much he loves Molly and how much she means to him.
As you might expect, everything works out for Carl, Molly, and Dupree in the end.
My Reaction: Well, like I said in the opening, I didn’t like this movie at all. The main reason is that it wasn’t even funny, despite the fact that it was supposed to be a comedy. I think the only time I cracked a smile was when Dupree was running through Carl’s office building throwing “7 kinds of smoke” at the security guard. Other than that, the gags were all things that anyone who’s watched a comedy in the past 10 years or so will be thoroughly familiar with. I mean, toilet humor? Seriously? That’s all the writers could come up with??
Moreover, I felt that the movie didn’t have a whole lot of structure to it, with the scenes just kind of being thrown in that particular order without rhyme or reason. The result was that I couldn’t get into the storyline and ended up not caring what happened next.
Overall, You, Me and Dupree misses the mark as a comedy. I give it 4.5 stars out of 10 and advise you not to waste your time. Chances are, you’ve seen all this before in one form or another anyway.
For the first time all season, we got an Entourage episode that really dealt with something directly related to Vince’s career. As a result, I felt that “Snow Job” was a strong offering despite the fact that there weren’t many laughs during the 25-minute ep. At this point, I’ll gladly sacrifice cheap laughs for plot development, especially since there are only two more episodes left before we head into the long mid-season hiatus. Anyway, here’s what happened on 4×10.