Unfinished Business should have stayed that

There’s little to recommend in crass comedy

★ ★ Starring: Vince Vaughn, Dave Franco, Tom Wilkinson Directed by: Ken Scott Running time: 91 minutes Unfinished Business is under no illusion that “business” is even remotely interesting, waving away even cursory explanations of what sort of business its businessmen are businessing with promises that it is, indeed, quite boring. It says something about how desperate for a hook your comedy is when even the movie itself can’t muster any enthusiasm for it.

The fact that “business” is also the sum total of its understanding of what its characters are theoretically up to also says something about how generally starved for specifics, or any characterization, the movie is.

It opens with Vince Vaughn, as his usual blustery, put-upon self, quitting his business job to go business elsewhere, because this business hasn’t been business enough for him. Joining forces with a pair of fellow ex-employees — forced-into-retirement Timothy (Tom Wilkinson) and technically never-hired, barely functioning youngster Mike Pancake (Dave Franco) — he is off to business his business for himself.

His partners are suitably streamlined, in that they each get one joke to sustain them for the rest of the movie: Tim is desperate for a divorce, Mike is an idiot who would need eight years of study to even count as clueless.

Wilkinson and Franco, actors who both still try on occasion, do what they can with these two, with the younger man coming out ahead: Tim is too sad even to be much of a believable old horn dog, where Mike is at least profoundly stupid enough to be silly on occasion.

This is a movie that treats everyone like grey spectres in a faceless corporation. Not that you would expect much else from a movie that openly admits its premise is boring.