Writer: Casey Lee

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Watch this if you liked: "Starbuck", "The Internship"

David Wozniak (Vince Vaughn) is an incompetent truck driver who delivers meat for the family butchery business, with no sense of taking charge of his life (much to the detriment of his brothers and father) and is in a dangerous debt after being scammed. When Dave is sent away by his pregnant girlfriend (Colbie Smulders) for not being reliable enough to be a father, Dave is visited by a lawyer from a fertility clinic where he had donated his sperm years ago.

Due to a slight discrepancy with the paperwork and the high quality of his sperm, Dave is informed that he is the biological father of 533 children through artificial insemination, and a group of them have banded together to file a lawsuit to know the identity of their father, despite Dave having signed an anonymity agreement before providing the seed.

For those who have seen the runner up for the People's Choice award at the 2011 Toronto Film Festival "Starbuck" by Ken Scott, the premise of "Delivery Men" would sound awfully familiar, and they make no mistake in thinking that "Delivery Man" is a remade descendant of the Canadian-French film, only this time fitted into the Hollywood mold by Ken Scott himself, no less, who returns to direct his own remake.

As a remake, few moments have been lost in the proceedings as Ken Scott goes for an almost bit-by-bit reenactment from the original, with Dave's inability to handle his own life and the new meaning he finds when he inadvertently peeks at the profile of one of his children. But some would find the casting of Vince Vaughn to have its own inherent problems. While it is easy to see Vaughn typecast fittingly into the role of Dave, it brings along with it the expectation for the sort of comedy that we last saw since "The Internship", that may have taken off the dramatic edges with laughs.

Though Vaughn rarely pulls off the closer to heart moments with any admiration when he slowly connects to the meaning of fatherhood on his own, he is helped to feel its joys with the combined strength of the supporting cast that play as his grown up children, or in the short but show-stealing scenes with Polish veteran actor Andrzej Blumenfeld,

Playing Vaughn's partner this time is Chris Pratt, as Dave's best buddy and amateur lawyer, Brett, who is tasked with defending Dave's identity from being revealed through the mechanics of the judiciary as the story goes sensational. Brett also acts as the living example to prevent Dave from embracing the chaos of fatherhood, and brings out the laughs with his comedic interaction with his children, and well-timed mess-ups during the legal proceedings.

For someone who hasn't watched "Starbuck" (or not planning to see the French and Indian remakes that are in the making), "Delivery Man" mainly delivers a slightly above average Vince Vaughn comedy that asks for a more heartfelt performance from the leading man, with a nice resolution to its abnormal premise, even if it comes late.

Cinema Online, 07 January 2014