Given that The Dilemma was categorized as a comedy and starred the two humorous actors, Kevin James (Paul Blart: Mall Cop) and Vince Vaughn (Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story), along with heartthrob, Channing Tatum (Dear John) casted as a supporting role, I expected The Dilemma to be a hilarious movie, but I was certainly under the wrong impression.

Set in Chicago, the movie shows the story of best friends, Ronny Valentine (Vaughn) and Nick Brannen (James), as they work on perfecting a car engine they were hired to design for Chrysler.  Everything seemed ideal for Ronny and Nick.  Everything was about to be perfect for the best friends.  They were about to have their big break at work.  Ronny was planning on proposing to his girlfriend, Beth (Jennifer Connelly).  Nick was still happily married to his wife, Geneva (Winona Ryder), or so he thought.

When Ronny sees Nick’s wife making out with another man, a man who certainly was not Nick, everything begins falling apart.  Ronny sees Geneva sneaking around with a young, trashy man with tattoos from head to toe (Tatum), and he makes it his mission to find out the truth, even if it means telling his best friend.

Ronny struggles to tell Nick the truth; especially given all the stress they’re under to make the deadline for their Chrysler project.  When Ronny decides to threaten Geneva about telling Nick about her lover, Zip (Tatum), she makes it clear she intends to lie and turn the story around on him.  Given that Geneva and Ronny hooked up before she started dating Nick, Ronny knows he’s in a tough spot.

He decides that his only option is to acquire hard evidence, so he purchases a camera, climbs a tree, and photographs the two hooking up in Zip’s apartment.  Problem solved?  Not quite.

Zip catches Ronny spying on his balcony and attacks him, providing the only funny scene of the movie.  The men fight their way through Zip’s apartment all the way to the street, but not without killing Zip’s fish, using aerosols and matches for flames, and taking a baseball bat to Ronny’s car.

From there, it only gets worse for Ronny.  The pressure of protecting his best friend leads to even crazier behavior that eventually leads to an intervention planned for Ronny because his close friends thought he had relapsed into his gambling addiction again.  The intervention takes a few turns and the truth quickly comes out.  Ronny and Nick’s friendship faces the ultimate test: will Nick kill the messenger or thank his friend for having his back?

Overall, the movie was decent.  It had a couple funny lines, but I definitely expected better.  I will admit that seeing Channing Tatum dressed basically as the definition of white trash with tattoos from head to toe, including one of a smiley face on his backside, was pretty funny.  The scene of him fighting with Vaughn was the best part of the movie, and perhaps the only truly good part.

I expected a better movie given the cast and trailers, so I was definitely disappointed.  It was one of those movies you see once and never need to see again.  It’s worth watching once, but I recommend waiting to Redbox it because it certainly isn’t worth paying to see.

The Dilemma is rated PG-13.