Susan Granger’s review of “The Good Guy” (Roadside Attractions)
Set in a more free-spending, pre-recession Manhattan, this genial romantic dramedy evokes a “Boiler Room” cocktail that’s diluted with “Metropolitan.”
As the modern, manipulative morality play begins, disheveled, womanizing Tommy Fielding (Scott Porter) is caught in a downpour, begging for help from his estranged girlfriend, Beth Vest (Alexis Bledel). But she’s moved on in her life and she turns him away.
Flashback three months for the rest of the story, that’s when Tommy and Beth began their relationship – discovering they’re both left-handed. She’s an up-and-coming urban conservationist, considering a career move to San Francisco. He’s a cocky, hotshot Wall Street trader, gleefully pitting hedge-fund and mutual-fund managers against one another for shares in his clients’ companies. When his opportunistic, high-pressure boss, Cash (Andrew McCarthy), discovers that a pivotal ‘team’ member is bolting to a competitor, he orders Tommy to find a replacement. That turns out to be Daniel Seaver (Bryan Greenberg), the sales floor’s shy, soft-spoken computer whiz. Caustic Cash has doubts about the choice, but Tommy’s confident that geeky, reticent Daniel can be trained to out-perform all expectations. And he does – in more ways than Tommy ever expected.
Borrowing the titular narrative device from British novelist Ford Madox Ford’s 1915 novel “The Good Soldier,” this is writer/director Julio DePrieto’s debut feature – and it shows, particularly in the script’s simplistic development of faith among these ambitious, upwardly mobile twentysomethings. After all, Daniel is supposed to be a Princeton graduate, just out of Mid-East military service. But the casting is competent, if not inspired, featuring Scott Porter from TV’s “Friday Night Lights” via “Dear John,” Alexis Bledel from TV’s “Gilmore Girls” via “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants,” and Bryan Greenberg, star of HBO’s “How to Make It in America” with supporting actors Anna Chlumsky and Aaron Yoo. And, as a former Wall Street insider, DePietro creates a credible corporate atmosphere.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Good Guy” is a generic if frenetic 5. Or, as wheeling-dealing Tommy says, “See how far a little trust can get ya?”
