Unfinished Business

This limp, sometimes lifeless business-trip comedy can’t decide whether to aim for teenage boys or their fathers. So it plumps for – and misses – both. Sick of his corporate job, salesman Daniel (Vince Vaughn, bland) tells his boss (Sienna Miller, showing good comic chops) where to stick it. Striking out on his own, he hires two likeable sad sacks (Dave Franco and Tom Wilkinson) who accompany him on a trip to Berlin to pitch for a make-or-break contract. There are fewer culture-clash gags than you might expect, but unfortunately the filmmakers can’t resist a hilarity-light sojourn to a nudist spa and a tasteless episode in the toilets of a gay bar. The same writer, Steve Conrad, penned 2013’s ‘The Secret Life of Walter Mitty’, and the less knockabout side of ‘Unfinished Business’ involves ruminations on how a life of work can damage family relations (Daniel’s two kids are having problems at school in his absence). But the two sides of this movie are forever in conflict. It’s like someone set out to write a world-of-work spin on ‘The Hangover’ but got embarrassed halfway. Distinctly missable.