By Allie Pino ’15

In the enjoyable comedy “Unfinished Business,” directed by Ken Scott, a hard-working small business owner and his two associates travel to Europe to close the most important deal of their lives. But what began as a routine business trip goes off the rails in every imaginable—and unimaginable—way, including unplanned stops at a massive parties and a global economic summit.

Dan Trunkman (Vince Vaughn) is a St. Louis family man. He’s a smooth talker who thinks he’s got it all figured out. In other words, it’s the kind of part that the Vaughn can play in his sleep. At home, his overweight teenage son is being cyberbullied, and his younger daughter is getting into trouble for beating up other kids. Dan has to send his son to a private school and is struggling to afford the tuition.

Dan grows tired of working for somebody else’s bonus so he quits working for his insufferable boss Chuck (Sienna Miller) to go into business for himself. He invites his colleagues Timothy McWinters (Tom Wilkinson), who has just been laid off, and Mike Pancake (Dave Franco), who had a job interview and no prayer of being hired, to join him in a revolt.

A year later, Dan’s striking out on his own as head of Apex Select. He seems to have successfully negotiated for Apex to be acquired by a massive firm called the Benjaminson Group. This is until he realizes that his company is being treated as “the fluffer,” a sort of decoy for a much bigger deal involving Dan’s former employer, placing him in direct competition with the sneering Chuck. Although he knows he doesn’t have a chance against the big boys, Dan insists on flying with Tim and Mike to Berlin, where they hope to convince Benjaminson’s corporate overlords to reconsider.

Vaughn plays it straight, going for the frustrated business man. Franco balances that with his last name, which was meant to wring laughs out of inarticulate mispronunciations of simple words. Franco’s character, clearly intended to be mentally handicapped, is a nice guy but slow, leaving one to wonder how he landed this particular corporate job. The actor plays it all convincingly, even selling the notion that such a guy could prove to be an unlikely ladies man in Berlin. Wilkinson is an old man in the last months of a bad marriage who wants to “experience joy” for once. He’s the one willing to drive this business trip into “Hangover” territory, hiring sex workers and trying ecstasy at the youth hostel.

While the team offers a fairly rushed approach to capturing the European surroundings such as: a glimpse of the Berlin Marathon, an Oktoberfest bacchanal, a violent protest outside a G8 summit, the movie manages to be serious while still delivering the comedic goods.