At the heart of Ron Howard's imperfect dramedy The Dilemma is a pretty good perfomance by Vince Vaughn as a man who desperately wants to tell his best friend (played by Kevin James) that he caught his wife (played by Winona Ryder) cheating on him. Problem is, Vaughn and James are in the midst of a big job (whey work in the automobile industry) and he fears such news might be too much for James to handle, and the last thing he wants to do is blow their multi-million dollar deal. So, Vaughn spends the majority of the film continuing to spy on Ryder and her much younger lover (a hilarious Channing Tatum) all while trying to keep his sanity in tact (because of his recent discovery, he begins questioning the character of his own girlfriend--played by Jennifer Connelly).

Howard is working with very heady material here, and I found it interesting that both leads in this picture are sort of cast against type. Vaughn actually plays nice while James is the high strung character. Ryder is terrific (a scene in which she tries to turn the tables on Vaughn is well played) while Jennifer Connelly provides the voice of reason in Vaughn's seemingly chaotic life. The Dilemma doesn't always find the right mix of drama and broad comedy.

The final act--which features an ill conceived intervention sequence--is a mess and I took real offense to the fashion in which Vaughn's character is treated as the wrong doer, but there's some great stuff in here. There's a positively hilarious scene in which Vaughn engages in an extended sparring match with an overly sensitive Tatum, and Vaughn's toast at an anniversary party is classic. Perhaps the best scenes in the movie are the ones between Vaughn and Connelly. They keep the proceedings firmly grounded in reality. I give props to Howard for taking what might have been generic material is the hands of a lesser film-maker and at least trying to do something honest. The Dilemma doesn't always hit the mark, but it was certainly better than I was expecting.