I tried not to have many pre-conceived notions about 'Made' before renting it. Then again, having Favreau/Vaughn together again will always conjure up thoughts of T & Mikey. Swingers may well haunt Favreau for the rest of his career. He alluded to that with his guest shot on 'The Sopranos'. It was a special movie, an instant classic which would be hard to top for any writer. 'Made' certainly tries to follow suit with the writing style but it falls flat. Vaughn (Ricky) plays a character who talks exactly like Trent but is more of a lunatic loser who's dream is to give up boxing to be a mob guy. Favreau (Bobby) is the level-headed friend who vouches for him while getting an assignment from his boss (Falk). All he wants is to get some $ so he can make better life for his stripper girlfriend & her child. Basically from there it splinters off into Ricky & Bobby trying to take care of 'the drop' in NYC for the boss (Falk). Ricky's "Goodfellas-like" mentality is causing headaches for Bobby who just wants to take care of business. I thought Sean Combs did a fine job playing himself essentially (a ganster living the high life). Yes, there are some funny lines but overall the movie is just too sloppy. It feels like a low budget flick, the camera work is not very good and the film takes no risks. Characters were not developed & the ending tries to be all sweet but I don't think enough was done to set that up. There were just too many missing ingredients. If Vaughn & Favreau want to do future films together maybe bring Doug Liman into direct it. He did a marvelous job with Swingers and maybe they could recapture some magic. It sure was missing in 'Made'.
Rating 6/10
