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What happens when a man fathers 533 biological children?
Well, not much apparently according to Vince Vaughn’s latest comedy, Delivery Man.
In a movie that tells the story of an irresponsible man and his discovery of the exorbitant amount of children that he fathered through anonymous sperm donations, the writing shifts awkwardly between dramatic and comedic multiple times. With a cookie cutter conclusion that in no way resembles reality, the movie leaves viewers feeling confused as to what they just witnessed.
Delivery Man is based on the screenplay for the 2011 film Starbuck starring Patrick Huard. Ken Scott directed both pictures and worked on both screenplays. In the 2013 adaptation, Vince Vaughn plays David Wozniak, a man employed in his father’s meat shop who donated an endless amount of sperm as a young adult to cover his family’s dream vacation. Cobie Smulders, of How I Met Your Mother fame, stars as Emma, David’s pregnant girlfriend. A slew of emerging young actors play the handful of biological children that David gets to know throughout the course of the film. Notable amongst the handful is Adam Chanler-Berat from Broadway’s Next to Normal and Peter and the Starcatcher.
The story opens with an amusing vignette that shows the audience just how irresponsible Wozniak is. His only responsibility for the day is to pick up the basketball jerseys for their shop’s team photo. As he drives the company truck all around Manhattan with no regard for parking tickets, the police finally tow the truck with all of the jerseys inside, leaving the team sans jerseys for their team photo.
There are a fair amount of cute moments such as these throughout the movie, but the overall impractical premise of the story does not allow these moments to shine. Vaughn’s character is only alerted to the fact that he has fathered 533 children because 142 of them join together to sue to have Wozniak’s real name revealed to them. All the children know of Wozniak as Starbuck, his alias and the title of the original 2011 screenplay. When a lawyer shows up at Wozniak’s apartment to inform him of this, Wozniak is forced to face the consequences of his actions. The lawyer gives Wozniak an envelope full of letters and pictures from the 142 children who want to get to know him, setting the rest of the film in motion.
The remainder of the movie is filled with different encounters that Wozniak has with his children. One of his children is a New York Knick, another is a barista/actor, another is a drug addict, and another plays guitar in Central Park. These encounters continue until Wozniak becomes so attached to these children that he contemplates revealing his true identity.
While the movie was certainly not boring, it stumbled through the story with a few laugh out loud moments here and there. It is a movie that is fine to watch on Netflix, but don’t spend the money in theaters. Go and see Hunger Games instead, it’ll be money better spent.