Stereotypes are true but to be avoided because they do not offer fresh perspectives, rather they present fixed views that coddle our expectations. Using the familiar return story, this movie exploits every stereotype it in almost every degree.
We have the cranky father, the old band of friends, the various women (this is mostly a male tale told from the male angle); economic hardship, career and ambition disappointments and many passing shots of houses and streets that would not grace a glossy lifestyle magazine.
Along with those tired contextual clichés we have the representation of working class men as horny, hard-drinking and unlikely to reach any form of maturity. They have scant lives besides benders and laughing drunkenly in their endless pursuit of male bonding. Such fixed and narrow representations of other social groups usually cause anger but perhaps this cohort are phlegmatic about such things.
To use a phrase, It is what it is, and if this story with its good intentions and able cast of actors seems worth the time, then so be it. Don't look for much above the prosaic.
We have the cranky father, the old band of friends, the various women (this is mostly a male tale told from the male angle); economic hardship, career and ambition disappointments and many passing shots of houses and streets that would not grace a glossy lifestyle magazine.
Along with those tired contextual clichés we have the representation of working class men as horny, hard-drinking and unlikely to reach any form of maturity. They have scant lives besides benders and laughing drunkenly in their endless pursuit of male bonding. Such fixed and narrow representations of other social groups usually cause anger but perhaps this cohort are phlegmatic about such things.
To use a phrase, It is what it is, and if this story with its good intentions and able cast of actors seems worth the time, then so be it. Don't look for much above the prosaic.