DVD review: The Change-Up

The Change-Up **

Genre: Comedy

Rating: R

Director: David Dobkin

Actors: Ryan Reynolds, Jason Bateman, Olivia Wilde

Growing up together, Mitch (Reynolds) and Dave (Bateman) were inseparable best friends but as the years have passed they’ve slowly drifted apart. While Dave is an overworked lawyer, husband and father of three, Mitch has remained a single, quasi-employed man-child who has never met a responsibility he liked. To Mitch, Dave has it all: beautiful wife Jamie (Leslie Mann) kids who adore him and a high-paying job at a prestigious law firm. To Dave, living Mitch’s stress free life without obligation or consequence would be a dream come true.

Following a drunken night out, Mitch and Dave’s world are turned upside down when they wake up in each other’s bodies.

Unlike other body swap movies such as Big and Freaky Friday that have both charm and a moral this movie is only about over the top gross out gags and jokes. Director David Dobkin (The Wedding Crashers) and screenwriters Jon Lucas and Scott Moore (The Hangover) fail to deliver on what might have been a descent movie if they had not gone for the easy bathroom humour.