Made (2001)

Directed by: Jon Favreau | 95 minutes | drama, comedy, crime | Actors: Jon Favreau, Vince Vaughn, Famke Janssen, Joe Goossen, Makenzie Vega, Reanna Rossi, Tom Morello, Jonathan Silverman, Kimberly Davies, Faizon Love, Elizabeth Barrondes, Gary Auerbach, Bill Capizzi, Peter Falk, Vernon Vaughn, Esta Joy Peters Jennifer Bransford, Vincent Pastore, Jason Delgado, Sean Combs, Leonardo Cimino, Federico Castelluccio, Matt O’Dwyer, Jason Fabini, David O’Hara, Joan Favreau, Jamie Harris, Tim Gallin, Guy Washburn, Bud Cort, Drea De Matteo , Dustin Diamond, Jennifer Esposito, Brian Donahue, Grandmaster Flash, Sam Rockwell

Jon Favreau started his career as a comedian at the prestigious Chicago ImprovOlympic, a group of pranksters that also included Mike Myers. In 1993 he made his silver screen debut with ‘Rudy’. During the shooting of that film, Favreau met Vince Vaughn, and the two clicked immediately. Favreau turned out to have more talents and threw himself first on screenwriting and later on directing. Three guesses for whom he had come up with a prominent role in the cast of his debut film ‘Swingers’ (1996, directed by Doug Liman). Favreau himself continued to act in films and on television and was even the friend of Monica Geller (Courteney Cox) in ‘Friends’ for six episodes. The crime comedy ‘Made’ (2001) is the first film that Favreau directed. The sympathetic New Yorker has since established his name as a director with blockbusters such as ‘Iron Man’ (2008) and ‘Iron Man 2’ (2010).

In ‘Made’ good friends Favreau and Vaughn can be seen together again. Favreau is Bobby, a failed boxer who wants nothing more than to build a bright future with his beautiful girlfriend Jess (Famke Janssen) and her daughter (Makenzie Vega). However, you cannot really call the situation at home at the family home. Jess earns a living as a stripper and Bobby is the one who gets to drive her to various bachelor parties. Their client, raucous mob boss Max (Peter Falk), is fed up with jealous Bobby beating up every man who even looks at his wife and is forced to find him another job. Bobby is allowed to go to New York on behalf of Max to deliver a package, in exchange for a lot of money. Easily earned, you might say. But they have not counted on Ricky (Vaughn). The two have been best friends for years, but where Bobby thinks about what he’s saying, Ricky is a huge blabbermouth. He also has a talent for making everything go wrong. So if Ricky goes to New York, it can only cause problems…

‘Made’ mainly revolves around the interaction between the hard-working, diligent and down-to-earth Bobby and the crazy dreamer Ricky, who invariably says the wrong things, speaks his mouth or tells the truth when the situation calls for a white lie. Thanks to the chemistry between the two it works wonderfully and that’s a good thing because ‘Made’ has little to say about the story. Vaughn gets away with most of the scenes, because of the dryly comic way he messes things up. Highlights include a scene on the plane to New York and a scene where the pair try to get into an expensive nightclub. Nice detail are the supporting roles of actors who became famous thanks to the mafia series ‘The Sopranos’, namely Vincent Pastore (Pussy) as a burly driver, Federico Castelluccio (Furio) as a doorman and Drea De Matteo (Adriana) as an escort. Other supporting roles include Sean ‘P. Diddy/Puff Daddy’ Combs and Faizon Love, as tough guys who have no idea what to do with the rough-and-tumble pair Max has left them with.

With ‘Made’ Jon Favreau has made a very nice directorial debut. Of course, the film mainly relies on Vaughn’s comedic interludes and the chemistry between the two protagonists, because the story isn’t much. But the humor is often spot on and the film fortunately does not take itself too seriously. Fun, unpretentious crime comedy for a carefree evening watching a movie.