We’ll refrain from making the obvious joke regarding the title, though it’s tempting; suffice to say that Todd Berger’s misguided black comedy should come with a complimentary hazmat suit for how poisonously unfunny it is. The time has come for another weekend couples brunch in Everysuburb, L.A., hosted by happily-marrieds Pete (Blaise Miller) and Emma (Erinn Hayes). All the expected faces are there, plus one newbie, Glenn (David Cross), who’s on his first date with the uptight Tracy (Julia Stiles). But the early afternoon gathering is disrupted when a bunch of dirty bombs get dropped downtown.
Now it’s just a matter of time before toxic gas leaks in and people start bleeding from orifices they didn’t even know they had—so why not air some unspoken issues, ranging from Tracy’s annoyance with veganism to the divorce that Pete and Emma have long been planning? Oh, and also the proper pronunciation of duct tape (hint: not like the thing that quacks). Berger’s script is little more than a series of contrived comic vignettes that prevent the actors from creating believable characters, forcing them to contort to fit the low-rent farce. Cross fares the worst, since he spends most of the film beautifully playing the empathetic voice of reason, only to have a horribly cheap third-act revelation undercut every nuance he’s spent most of the movie building. The literal end can’t come quick enough.
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