Dreamworks’ “Delivery Man” is not your typical Vince Vaughn movie. Since his big break in “Swingers” he has been seemingly typecast as an obnoxious chauvinist with raunchy tendencies. This movie shows the softer side of Vince Vaughn as an actor tugging at the heart strings, but also staying entertaining. I was reminded of Jim Carrey’s “Liar Liar” in the sense of being a comedy and having a lot of fun, but still having a lot of heart and showing the serious side of being human.
Vince Vaughn plays David Wozniak, a 42 year old delivery driver for his family’s meat store with his brothers and his father. Basically he’s a man that has never “grown up” or rather, taken on major responsibilities. His unreliability is legendary amongst his family and friends, but he’s not a bad person. He tries in his own way to get by and be happy, he just tends to not make the best decisions, even tho they are mostly the best in intention. Even his cop girlfriend (played by Cobie Smulders) tells him that she is pregnant with his child but doesn’t want David involved in the pregnancy in any way until he can get his act together.
The story really gets underway soon thereafter when his best friend (and lawyer) Brett (played by Chris Pratt) tells him that he’s the subject of a class action lawsuit. It seems that 20 years ago he was a frequent sperm donor and due to an administrative issue he become the sole donor to over 500 children and now over 100 of them are now suing the clinic to learn the identity of their father. Brett advises him to keep his secret but when he hands David a packet with all the identities of the children in the lawsuit, David cannot help but snoop them.
This starts a sequence of David finding his children without their knowledge and attempting to influence their lives for the better any way he can without revealing himself. This starts out creepy and stalker-ish, which fits into David’s character of making bad decisions for the best intentions, but as things start rolling and getting muddled together the plot twists and turns to keep up with David’s frantic way of trying to be a father to kids he never knew and trying to shoulder responsibilities that he’s never thought of, mostly to prove to his girlfriend that he can be the father to their child that she wants him to be.
I was entertained by the movie, the situations can be contrived and it definitely toes the line of being overly cheesy. Some of the subplots seem to be tacked on and resolved in a flash (owing money to the mob seems the biggest example) but overall I say it’s worth the price of admission just to see Vince Vaughn in a role outside his box.