I wanted to but couldn't!

hyped garbage

Don't listen to the negative reviews

The acting in this movie is really good.

Tom (Zach Braff) and Sofia (Amanda Peet) are about to have their first kid. They're just scraping by until Tom gets fired from his kitchen job. They leave NYC so that Tom can work for his father in-law Bob (Charles Grodin)'s Ohio ad agency while she can stay at home with the newborn. Then, Tom has to work under the passive aggressive Chip (Jason Bateman), and Sofia is having a miserable time too.Zach Braff and Amanda Peet have pretty good comedic pedigree. They have a good 15 minutes start to this movie. Then they go to Ohio and run into an SNL skit. Tom puts it best. Chip has a darkness in him, and it's not funny. He's basically a black hole where all jokes go to die. Jason Bateman should stick to playing the good guy. If he goes dark, he might as well be a serial killer because he's not a funny bad guy.

The movie is 88 minutes. The special features adds 15 minutes at least and offers 3 alternates endings. Thus i understand why i got the feeling to watch a slapdash movie. It have been produced with a tag-line and the idea have been difficult to gather. In fact, the movie is really slow to start and when the funny moments arrive, it's too late.It's a pity because the American movies criticizing work life are scarce. If "Devil wore Prada" wasn't really about the real workers, here, the work environment is unfortunately ridiculous (a hippie boss and a cunning colleague). The only good thing is the typology of the cast: the old bunch (Farrow, Grondin), the young team (Peet, Braff) and the newcomers (Bateman, Adams). Amanda is a cool mother and a responsible wife and it's great she doesn't loss her smile with years.

In this movie we see Tom Reilly getting sacked as a cook in Manhattan and starting over in Ohio at the ad agency, where his father-in-law is the assistant director.Tom and his wife Sofia have their first child.What causes trouble in Tom's new life is Chip, the man in a wheelchair.Chip happens to be Sofia's ex-boyfriend from high school.Tom doesn't trust that guy.The Ex (2006) is directed by Jesse Peretz.The movie was a pretty big failure, but I don't see it as such a huge turkey.Zach Braff gives a great performance in the lead as Tom Reilly.Amanda Peet is very good as Sofia.Jason Bateman's character Chip Sanders is not the most likable, but his performance is good.I really enjoyed watching the work of Charles Grodin, who plays Bob Kowalski.In his character you can find a pretty big deal of tragicomedy.Before this movie Charles hadn't done one single movie in 12 years, and after this he hasn't done any.Mia Farrow is terrific as his wife Amelia.Amy Poehler plays Carol Lane.Paul Rudd is Leon.Fred Armisen plays Manny.Donald Logue is Don Wollebin.Amy Adams portrays Abby March.Marin Hinkle plays the part of Karen.As a movie this doesn't shine in anyways.It may have some potential, but that's all.Some of the characters in this movie are a bit annoying, like that kid.And of course Chip.But it is a bit funny sometimes.Like when Tom tries to prove that Chip can walk.So this is a movie you can check out when you got the time, and you may even like it.

"The Ex" is one of those movies that you expect to be a little-known comedy gem. Its cast, including Amanada Peet, Zach Braff and Jason Bateman, are all very talented. But there's good reason it was a straight-to-DVD release. It's not funny.Its biggest problem is with characterization. Zach Braff plays the everyman, which is good casting because Braff plays the everyman with a comedic touch quite well. So well, in fact, that we connect to him. He wants to treat his wife well, work hard, and impress his in-laws. We want him to succeed just as much as he does. But then we start finding out that his wife (Amanda Peet) has no likable qualities and continues to force his life into hell, his in-laws of course are completely stubborn, and his co-worker (Jason Bateman) is a competitive back-stabbing ex-boyfriend of his wife. Obviously things don't go well for our hero, and they don't go well for the entire course of the movie.For this to work as a comedy, we need to understand our hero's connection to his wife, we need to see that there's a way in to connect with his in-laws, and we need to know that other characters see what the ex is really like, but the writers didn't give us any of that. Instead we have to sit there while our hero, who is essentially us, is being tortured for no good reason and with no way out. I certainly wasn't laughing.