Big Picture Big Sound

Jack Black Derails New Comedy

Earlier this year, I thought it was going to be a challenge to top how annoying Johnny Depp's character was in "Mortdecai". A few months later, we have "The D Train" and Jack Black comes really close, if not surpasses, Depp's mustachioed art collector.

Black stars as Dan Landsman, a seemingly harmless everyday guy. He works for nondescript company but is much more passionate about organizing his high school reunion. Dan is the self-appointed chairman of the committee, a name only he recognizes and everyone else brushes off. Dan just wants to be liked by his fellow committee members, who often have post-meeting beers without him.

One night, Dan concocts a ridiculous plan to help make him popular among the planning committee and boost attendance at the reunion. He catches a sunblock commercial, starring a familiar face. The man in the commercial is Oliver Lawless (James Marsden), who was the most popular guy in Dan's class. The light bulb goes off and Dan decides to lie to his wife (Kathryn Hahn) and boss (Jeffrey Tambor) about having to go to Los Angeles for a work meeting. He is going to win over Oliver and convince him to come to the meeting.

Oliver is a bit of an aimless free spirit, who isn't the major Hollywood star Dan has built him up to be. Together they party and things get weird but Dan convinces Oliver to attend the reunion. When Dan gets home, he is a different man, mainly for the worst. His confidence grows and his committee members momentarily like being in his company because he actually got Oliver Lawless to attend the reunion. Mostly, he is just more grating than he was before.

"The D Train" clocks in at 97 minutes but is a slow uphill climb to a series of inevitable fallouts and obvious confrontations. The predictability within Andrew Mogel and Jarrad Paul's screenplay (they also directed the film) is not the problem. The movie's weakest link is Black's character. Dan is simultaneously needy and self-righteous but Black plays him so distractingly big. I have never been a huge fan of Black's comedy but have loved his work in "The School of Rock" and "Bernie". He tries to go the edgy dark comedy route here and it fails every step of the way.

However, Marsden is a brief glimmer of light in this movie. He nails the hopeless wanderer role and elicits the few minor laughs the movie has. His character is almost as desperate as Black's in some ways but Marsden is able to find the right balance of displaying false confidence without overdoing it.

"The D Train" had its premiere at this year's Sundance Film Festival and most of the talk was about a few seconds of sex scene. You know your film is bad when this is all people can talk about. And, let me tell you, it's bad.