The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard: Critic Reviews

The comedy concept is solid... It's the execution that's out of alignment in The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard.

A grubby-looking comedy about the art of the sale.

This film is so crass and so lowbrow its hairline is level with the carpet underlay. And yet, and yet, I must hang my head and confess I did laugh a fair bit.

The audience will no doubt laugh on cue as The Goods hits its marks with dutiful predictability, but they shouldn't be surprised if they come to feel like they've been had.

The Goods has its exuberant moments. But the people behind the camera don't appear to know what they're doing as well as those in front of it.

The oh-so-out-there mentality earns some chuckles, but that, along with Piven's preening, gets very trying. A hard sell is still a hard sell.

The Goods is a cheerfully energetically and very vulgar comedy. If you're okay with that, you may be okay with this film, which contains a lot of laughs and has studied Political Correctness only enough to make a list of groups to offend.

I laughed more than I thought I would (though of course hope springs eternal at the movies) and if I ran the Hollywood zoo, I'd give these particular screenwriters another assignment.

It's a grab bag of comic ideas, but some of the gags are impressively perverse.

The Goods is not without its share of laughs. But the laughs come with contempt and condescension, not empathy.

The movie gores many sacred cows, insulting families, capitalism, sexual responsibility, political correctness and smoking bans, with glee if not originality.

It's an unconscionable waste of talent, an immediate embarrassment for Jeremy Piven, Ving Rhames, David Koechner, Ed Helms and Tony Hale. Who knows how much they got paid, but if it wasn't a lot, they were robbed.

A project about selling used cars invites abuse, but the movie indeed runs out of gas, squandering a wealth of comedy talent mostly associated with television.

The Goods, which shows signs of considerable tinkering in the editing room, is understandably not getting a hard sell at all by its studio.

It's a car-selling comedy that plays like a backfiring Bentley -- a shiny ride that runs in fits and starts, never quite hitting on all cylinders.

The flick has the right cast to be a funny ride, but instead suffers from a panicky sense of desperation to cram it all in while offending as many people as possible with lowball yuks.

This film is like a piano falling on a car -- it may sound funny, but not when it happens to you.

An aggressively hard-sell of a loud, abrasive comedy.

It's just repetitive, adolescent and lame.

The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard has a beater's clunky, fast-moving charm.

The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard is an entirely throwaway experience that doesn't offer anything vaguely witty or clever. Look elsewhere to satisfy your comedy needs.

...an agreeable piece of work...

While it is brash and absurd and funny in fits and starts, it also seems to lose its nerve as it goes on.