The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard (2009)

Starring: Jeremy Piven, Ving Rhames, Jordana Spiro, James Brolin, David Koechner, Kathryn Hahn, Ed Helms, Rob Riggle, Jonathan Sadowski, Will Ferrell, Ken Jeong, Craig Robinson, Alan Thicke, Charles Napier, Tony Hale, Noureen DeWulf, Kristen Schaal, Wendie Malick, T.J. Miller, Matt Walsh, and Paul Lieberstein
Grade: A

If someone were to ever argue that Jeremy Piven can’t be the star of a movie, show them The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard.

Summary

On a beautiful morning in Temecula, California, we see the sad state of car dealership Selleck Motors. The car salesmen working there are either inexperienced, stupid, or insane. The owner, Ben Selleck (Brolin), realizes they aren’t doing too hot. Since the bank is getting on him for back payments, he decides to call in a mercenary, a weekend salesperson brought in to boost business. He calls Don “The Goods” Ready (Piven). His business card even says, “I Move Cars, Motherfucker”.

Meanwhile, we see Don and his crew in the early morning at a strip club in Flagstaff, Arizona. Don’s crew consists of Jibby (Rhames), Babs (Hahn), and Brent (Koechner). They’re all very loyal members to Don’s crew, and they move from job to job selling cars together. They just got off of a job, but Don gets the call from Selleck to come to his lot to help for July 4th weekend. There’s 211 cars and a lot of money to be made. Though Don’s crew is exhausted from the last job, he insists, so they all head out. On the plane, Brent gives the group information on Selleck and his family to get them ready. Some things to look out for are his daughter Ivy (Spiro) and his son Peter (Riggle). Peter is labeled as a ten-year-old on Brent’s information packet, but we find out later that he’s dealing with some pituitary problem and that he’s technically a ten-year-old in an adult male’s body. After convincing the flight attendant to let him smoke on the airplane with a rousing speech than inspires all the passengers, leading to a party on the flight, Don and his crew land and meet Peter, Ivy, and Ben Selleck. Though Peter is technically a child, Babs is immediately attracted to him, and Don becomes attracted to Ivy, who doesn’t fall for his flirting. There’s a lot of love in the air. Ben even finds himself attracted to Brent, despite Ben being married and Brent not being gay.

Later, Ben drives everyone, as Don tells him about how he got interested in the art of selling. When he was a child, he was able to trade his lowly balloon toy thing to this other kid in the neighborhood for his toy bike by convincing him how awesome his toy was. He sells it with ease, though even in the flashback we see how lonely the child version of Don was. He won the trade, but the other kid still had the friends and the girl. After Don and his crew get settled at the Hacienda Courts hotel chain, or as Don calls it “home”, they meet the Selleck family for dinner at their house. Don talks about his gameplan at the dinner table. As he does, he tries to flirt with Ivy. Babs does the same with Peter, and Ben tries the same with Brent, insisting his marriage with his wife (Malick) is dying. Just then, Ivy’s fiancé Paxton Harding (Helms) walks in. His father Stu (Thicke) owns Harding Imports. Though Paxton works for Stu, he’s also in a boy band with his two friends. Paxton and Don get off on the wrong foot fairly quickly. Regardless, Paxton has to rehearse with his band, so he takes Ivy with him. That night, Don and the crew go out to a strip club. This is where Jibby reveals to Babs that he’s never “made love” to a woman. He’s had sex A LOT, but he’s never made love, and he’s sad about it. This is where Babs reveals she wants to make love to the technical ten-year-old in Peter, weirding out Jibby. The four reconvene, and they agree to hire three of the strippers for the lot, along with the DJ (Robinson).

It’s now 7AM, and it’s 3 hours before the store opens to customers. Don and his crew take turns giving their speeches to the other salesmen about how to approach everything, as well who they are and what they’re about. It goes well for a bit, until Don’s speech about war gets off track. Once he mentions Pearl Habor, the other salesmen misconstrue this, and it inspires them to beat down Teddy Dang (Jeong) because he’s Asian. Once Don calms everyone down, he convinces Dang to forget about being a victim of a hate crime and in return, he’ll get first dibs on customer ups. The staff goes through the workday, and they kick ass. One salesman named Blake (Sadowski) starts doing well. However, after he shows off similar traits to Don, Don is convinced Blake may be his long-lost son because of a certain incident in Temecula years back. As the workday closes, Don tells everyone they have sold 71 cars in one day, which equates to 34% of the inventory. To celebrate, Don invites everyone out for a karaoke night. At the same time, Jibby starts getting close with one of the strippers (DeWulf). Before everyone leaves the lot, Paxton shows up with his father Stu. Stu offers to buy Ben’s property to use it as rehearsal space for Paxton’s boy band. As Ben and Stu talk in private, and Paxton and Don argue about Ivy, amongst other things, Ben agrees to sell, but he promises that Don will get paid the full amount that was intended.

Interestingly enough, Don wants to stick it to Paxton and Stu. Instead, he offers to sell every car off the lot for Ben to save his business in a few days, or he’ll leave sales for good. Ben doesn’t budge, so Don offers for Ben to have Brent for a night if he fails. Ben immediately changes his mind and tells Stu that the deal is off until the weekend is over. Now, Don has one goal in mind: SELL THE METAL!

My Thoughts:

It came and left and very few remember it but make no mistake about it, The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard is downright hilarious.

Directed by the co-creator of Chappelle’s Show in Neal Brennan, and produced by the team of Will Ferrell and Adam McKay, this movie’s absurd premise is in some great comedic hands. This film is all about selling cars, something I’m not interested in at all. However, just like how The Wolf of Wall Street inspired millions of college students to become stockbrokers, The Goods, in a brisk hour-and-a-half, made me actually consider the crazy life of a car salesman. Jeremy Piven brings that manic intensity and over-the-top confidence he contained in every episode of Entourage to the set of The Goods, creating the outlandish Don Ready. This man is like if an energy drink and a pack of cigarettes had a baby with a human. He’s slimy, he’s driven, and he has a will to win like no other. Don “The Goods” Ready doesn’t care about anything in life, except selling cars. He doesn’t have a family, and he’s on the road fifty-one weeks out of the year. He’s been on the road so much, he prefers takeout over a home-cooked meal, which as Ben points out is “flat-out weird and rude”.

Funnily enough, Ben’s line is actually a great way to describe Don.

On a side note, I’ve seen a lot of movies, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard of someone preferring fast food over a home meal used as a character trait. What a weirdly funny idea. This is originality at its finest.

Living out of his beloved Hacienda Courts and making frequent trips to strip clubs, this trashy son of a bitch lives life at a pace most college students couldn’t. He makes it work though because he’s only got one goal. With a stern voice, he tells the new sales crew that he has hair on his balls, and he sells cars. That’s it. This is his life. This isn’t just a tagline from Don used to hype up this rag tag gaggle of idiots. This is Don’s livelihood, and Piven is laugh-out-loud hysterical in bringing this outrageous character to life onscreen. He embodies the “sleazy car salesman” stereotype, but he also makes Don a likable sleazy car salesman. When he convinces the flight attendant to let him smoke on the airplane, he manages to get the entire plane to agree with him by using his charm, wit, and knowledge of the situation, to inspire. Now, that is a motherfucking salesman! Jeremy Piven may be 5’9”, but he’s got a 6’9” personality. That is Don Ready. Don is loud and makes his presence known, but he also knows how to sell himself to anyone. We see this on numerous occasions that will have you rolling on the floor laughing, like when he downplays some of the rougher stuff he says in front of Ben’s family by saying he’s a Christian man, or “whatever religion dominates the region I’m selling in”. Another example is when he’s first introduced to Peter. He calls him “retarded” but when he finds out Peter is technically a ten-year-old, he’s able to switch things up in a heartbeat and win over Peter by treating him like a child.

This movie treats selling cars like it’s the most fun job in the world, and it’s hard not to buy into it. It genuinely looks fun. Seeing Don scream “SELL THE METAL!” like a battle cry, as the salesmen behind him yell like they’re about to go to war is the type of humor that is so ridiculous, it’s funny. I love the terms and small inside jokes between the characters too. It adds a lot of depth to this world of selling cars in Temecula, California. Hearing about the “Nigerian buy back” move, what actually happened in Alburquerque, and even Brent’s low-key genius argument that having a picture of a fat wife and skinny kids will have customers pity you and want to buy from you, makes it seem like these guys are world-class car salesmen that know everything about the trade. This is why it’s so easy to buy what they’re selling. Look, Brent’s argument is pretty well thought out. No one will admit it but subconsciously, the “pitying” does work as a closer in a sales context. When you add David Koechner’s in-your-face delivery to it, you can’t help but laugh too. Speaking of Koechner, he’s probably one of the standouts in a movie filled with colorful supporting characters. Brent is a wizard in financing cars for people. According to him, he can always find a way to do it for people, including getting MC Hammer a car when he went famously bankrupt. He’s a loyal member to Don’s dream team too. We see this hilariously in a scene where Blake, knowing he’s not Don’s son even though Don thinks otherwise, tells Brent, but Brent chastises him for it. Brent argues that Don would’ve made a great father to Blake, and Blake should think about why his actual dad left him because maybe it’s his fault.

Hey, it’s all about selling cars right now! Don’t distract the team Blake!

All of the lying and all of the little tactics to try and sell cars at all costs was so fun to watch, and they’ll do it all with smiles on their faces like when Don hits the classic line, “In your country, they would cut your hands off because you’re stealing from us”. Even when the sale is already made, he continues to ham it up. You got to love it. The script is over-the-top funny and riddled with crude and offensive humor. If this sort of thing doesn’t bother you, it’s a fucking laugh riot.

The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard is one of the most underrated comedies I’ve seen in a while. It’s joke after joke and gag after gag, and if one doesn’t work, they hit you with another one almost immediately after to keep the quick pace going. Roger Ebert said something similar to this about the film, and I have to agree with him. It’s honestly a joy to watch. Very rarely can you include this much loaded offensive humor and have it be this light-hearted, but that’s what The Goods is. On top of the ludicrous plot that locks you in, there’s a well-developed side story with Jordana Spiro (who has great chemistry with Piven), sidesplitting supporting characters who hit us with funnier and funnier quotes as the movie goes on, and Craig Robinson as a DJ that refuses, and in fact gets offended, if you request anything. I was crying laughing when he was asked to play something happy, so he plays a song where the opening lyrics are “Dead puppies!”. It’s rowdy, it’s loud, and it’s a laugh-a-minute. I implore you to ignore the negative reviews it received. It’s hysterical.

Now, if you get insulted easily, this isn’t for you. However, if you like a no-holds-barred comedy that has everything from hate crimes to pedophilia (on a technicality), then this wild ass movie will brighten your week.

Ironically, the only scenes that aren’t as funny as the rest of the movie involve Will Ferrell. This is when you know you have something special.