Disappointments come in sizes large and small. In part, being disappointed about something can be the result of expectations and, in the case of Keeping Up With The Joneses, that may well be the biggest problem with this film.
With a cast consisting of Zach Galifianakis, Isla Fisher, Jon Hamm, and Gal Gadot (plus at least one more surprise star who shows up at the end of the film…you can easily look up who it is but its better to let the film surprise you at least once there) and directed by Greg Mottola (who directed episodes of Arrested Development along with films like Superbad and Adventureland), one comes into the film hoping, nay, expecting to be entertained by the hilarity.
Yet following seeing this pleasant but forgettable film, one can’t help but be, as I said above, disappointed.
Look, Keeping Up With The Joneses is not a terrible film. What it is is a surprising toothless comedy wherein the cast and situations presented are often so tame as to make you wonder exactly what the makers of this film were up to.
I’m not saying the movie would have been better as some kind of bawdy hard “R” comedy, its just that everyone here seems so pleasant and nice and the situations they encounter, with the exception of two action sequences, so mild and toothless that you wonder why anyone bothered.
Zach Galifianakis, who has been quite good in past comedies, plays Jeff Gaffney, a boring family man who works for the Human Resources division in a high tech company. He and Karen (Isla Fisher), his wife, let their kids go to summer camp and, for the first time in years, have an “empty nest”. Instead of getting down to that lovin’ business, they continue their boring lives while across the street and in their cul de sac neighborhood a house is sold and its new owners, played by Jon Hamm and Gal Gadot, move in.
They have movie star looks (duh) and what appears to be a very exciting life versus the boring ones this suburban neighborhood has.
They are also, as you know from the commercials, more than they’re letting on. It turns out they’re some kind of super-spies investigating the company Jeff Gaffney works for.
Of the plot, there’s little else to be said. The movie rolls along, pleasant enough and with a few chuckles here and there (and, to be fair, a few bigger laughs as well, though they are few and far between) but when all is said and done you can’t help but wonder why everyone bothered.
This is a film that could have used a far sharper script and perhaps an edgier presentation. Something, anything, to get it out of being what it is: Mediocre.