Movie Info

RATING:

PG-13 for sexual content, brief language and a drug reference.

GENRE:

Comedy

RELEASE:

May 11, 2007

STARRING:

Zach Braff, Amanda Peet, Jason Bateman, Mia Farrow, Donal Logue

DIRECTOR:

Jesse Peretz

DISTRIBUTOR:

The Weinstein Company , MGM Distribution Company

 

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MOVIE REVIEW

The Ex

Movieguide Magazine

What's This?

CBN.com - The Ex is the story of Tom (Zach Braff), a new father and career underachiever who must come to grips with his adult life and become the sole provider for his wife, Sofia (Amanda Peet), and their new child by going to work for his father-in-law (Charles Grodin). However, Tom’s new job is not all he had hoped as he finds himself both working with and yet pitted against his arch-nemesis, Chip (Jason Bateman), a disabled man who just happens to be Sofia’s ex-boyfriend and who just happens to hate Tom.

After losing yet another job on the day of his child’s birth, Tom takes it as a sign from God that perhaps he and Sofia need to move out of New York City and head to Ohio so Tom can work for Sofia’s father. Tom steps into his new job; and, immediately, he is miserable. His father-in-law’s advertising firm is a lot less like real life and a lot more like pre-school than Tom would hope, and Chip is the biggest bully on the playground.

Even though he is wheelchair-ridden, Chip does everything he can to paralyze Tom in his new position. From sabotaging Tom’s ideas to lying to Tom’s clients, Chip continues to demoralize and attack Tom in every way imaginable. Chip’s hatred of Tom is rooted in one thing: he used to date Sofia. Now, Chip wants her back, and he will stop at nothing to make sure Tom is out of the picture. Tom must find a way to defeat Chip at his own game, win the respect of his coworkers and his father-in-law, and secure the affection of his wife before he loses everything.

The Ex has some laugh-out-loud moments of physical comedy, but the movie leans too heavily on raunchy, sex-based humor. The foul language is excessive, and some of the characters are flat and one-dimensional. The actors do well with the material they have been given, but the script uses caricatures as the punch line of a joke rather than reality-based, three-dimensional people. So, at times, the characters and the story make the movie feel too much like an episode of sitcom television rather than a major motion picture.

With strong sexual humor as well as foul language and other objectionable content, The Ex is excessive, and media-wise people of faith do not need to waste their time on it.

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Bob and Harvey Weinstein
Co-Chairmen
The Weinstein Company
345 Hudson Street, 13th Floor
New York, NY 10014
Phone: (646) 862-3400
Fax: (917) 368-7000
Website: www.weinsteinco.com

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