Cyrus (2010–91mins) John C. Reilly, M. Tomei, Jonah Hill

 Cyrus is an awkward comedy/drama from the Duplass brothers which lost my interest in about 20 mins. It’s got some potential in good comedic actors and a solid premise. John (Reilly) is a man who can’t get back on the horse after a divorce 7 years ago, and it turns out his only two friends are his ex-wife and her new husband. They try to get him out of the house and convince him to come to a cocktail party where we find out he is truly an awkward mess at the social scene. Yet, he does manage to find a pretty single woman to talk to in Molly (Tomei). They both have the same odd sense of humor and manage to hit it off well and even go home together.  It’s up to this part where things seem to be going well and we even get a few decent chuckles out of the movie. Yet from here on the directors infuse us with the premise that Molly’s achilles heel is her overly attached 21 year old son who lives at home with her (Hill). I could live with this whole premise if it was a comedy of errors and hi jinks that leaves one pitted against the other. However it takes the real awkward turn to the point that you feel completely uncomfortable and almost don’t want to watch. It’s here I started to lose interest. It’s not the embarrassment you feel when watching The Office, rather take that and multiply it by 50 and you get the discomfort that Cyrus gives us.

The whole movie is a mess. The characters never fully get fleshed out and they try to spin little stories or ideas in the characters but never go anywhere with it. They throw awkward situation after awkward situation just to ramp it all up the whole time. Chasing that one climax and break down of the story. Sorry guys I’m not buying it. And I am also not going to recommend this movie to anyone to waste their time on.

I will take a few mins to discuss the actors in this film. Reilly does his normal thing. He’s a good schlub and he shows it again here. He’s only doing what is asked of him and it’s not to be the awkward one it’s the reacting to it all. Yet, Tomei and Hill don’t give us a whole lot in the means of power in their take on the mother son relationship. They try and evoke the stronger relationship where they are more then that, they are supposed to be best friends and he is extremely over protective, but they don’t succeed at convincing me more then they are trying. Sorry guys you fail slightly less then the writers/directors. (Which sucks to say b/c I am a huge fan of M. Tomei)

Verdict—> Another bad choice by the GeekJock for Redbox night. Sorry work peeps I thought it would be better. And I won’t try and subject other people to waste their dollar on this one. Skip it, you will thank me. If you want to see it wait for it to be on Starz at 2am. At least then the beer will be cold and chips fresh.

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