Remakes are a tricky proposition, even when every effort is taken to carefully transpose the project to a new language and audience. Delivery Man, a remake of the sweet, low-key French-Canadian comedy Starbuck, tries its hardest and copies almost every aspect of the original to the letter. It even carries over the original film’s director/co-screenwriter. Yet somehow, it still can’t quite recapture the charm of the original.
David Wozniak (Vince Vaughn) is a likable slacker with money and girlfriend problems who works as a meat delivery man in his family’s butcher shop. His life is turned upside down when he is told by the lawyer of a fertility clinic that his multiple sperm donations from more than two decades ago have fathered more than 500 children, and that 142 are filing suit to have his identity revealed. Despite still wanting to maintain his anonymous, David’s curiosity gets the best of him. Against the advice of his best friend/lawyer Brett (Chris Pratt), he secretly begins trailing his grown up children and attempting to serve them as a sort of guardian angel.
It’s hard to review a film like this so soon after seeing the original (which played at Landmark San Diego cinemas only a couple of months ago). It seems as if the script has simply been translated to English. Aside from a few minor alterations, the action and dialogue is repeated word for word by the cast. The differences between the two films are so minor that’s it almost eerie to watch. Vaughn’s certainly likable enough and both he and Pratt get a couple of laughs out of the material, but many of the jokes fall awkwardly flat. The timing just seems slightly off, or too forced. It’s almost like a carbon copy in which only 25% of the page is sharp and the remaining 75% is fuzzy.
Unfortunately, the few small alterations that exist aren’t to the film’s benefit either. There’s a clumsy joke that explicitly and unnecessarily states the reason why David made so many donations to the sperm bank. In the original film, it was always implied, but never stated outright. Some of the film is scored in a more obvious manner, and the film’s sentimental final act is slightly overplayed in this version. In those last fifteen minutes, all of the characters are red and watery-eyed, making its emotional manipulations all the more obvious.
The biggest laughs are identical to those in the original. There’s an uncomfortable exchange when David accidentally runs into several of his children at the same location and must introduce them to each other and explain how he knows them all. And an accidental public gaffe from Brett leads to some amusing material. But much of the family bickering at the butcher shop that worked so well in the previous version is blandly recreated here.
If you haven’t seen the original, perhaps it will play better than it did for this reviewer. But it’s hard to imagine this film not coming across as a little lackluster, even to those new to the story. Delivery Man just isn’t a choice cut. If you want the premium grade version, check out Starbuck instead – it’s a more endearing and effective comedy that is currently streaming on Netflix.