Vaughn and James play Ronny and Nick, partners in a company that makes electric engines. They're hurting for business, so when they get the opportunity to bid for a project with Ford (making an engine that sounds like an old-school muscle car, which is apparently a challenge), they leap at the chance. As Ronny gears up to propose to his perfect chef girlfriend Beth (Jennifer Connelly), he discovers that Nick's wife Geneva (Winona Ryder) is fooling around with a tattooed boytoy (Channing Tatum). Not wanting to disturb Nick's scientific process, Ronny confronts Geneva, and is blackmailed into keeping quiet, encouraged to stay that way by the fact that both men are practically broke and Nick is already getting an ulcer from setbacks on the project. Even though he doesn't want to compromise the project or make Nick feel worse, Ronny still tries to shame Geneva into confessing, and his fumbling attempts to do so, as well as gather evidence to show Nick, only make Beth suspicious of him, and vice versa. On top of that, there are past demons that threaten to return and destroy Ronny and Beth's seemingly perfect relationship.

Aside from possibly the disastrous speech Vaughn gives at Beth's parents' anniversary party -- which, itself, descends into a very dark place -- none of the jokes can break through the gloomy situation. At one point, Ronny is sitting on a bench crying, asking for God's guidance, and a last-minute request for help at work is thrown in at the end, seemingly to provide a moment of levity. (It doesn't.) Connelly laughs a lot at first, but ultimately her role is as dramatic as any she's done, and Ryder's character has two settings, "distraught" and "evil." Tatum's party boy starts out seeming naive, but he turns out to be a bit of a monster, as well, and even James is not some innocent cuckold -- he's complicit in his marriage's failure. Hell, not even Queen Latifah can bring the funny as a raunchy Ford executive; her constant sexual references come off far creepier than anyone surely intended. If this movie had been made as an awkward drama, with occasional, morbidly humorous moments, rather than a comedy about a sad, serious situation, it might have been great, and a revelation for most of the actors involved. But instead it's like watching some strange version of Wedding Crashers where everyone is dying of cancer.

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