Chicago weather man Dave Spritz makes $240,000 a year for two hours work a day. So he should be on top of the world. Except he's still in love with his ex-wife (who hates him) and is estranged from his secretive son and obese daughter. He also thinks he's a disappointment to his dying father, a world-class novelist. And as if that wasn't bad enough, members of the public have taken to pelting him with fast food and drinks. But with the chance of a new job in New York, Dave might actually be able to turn his life around.

The screenplay by Steven Conrad relies so heavily on its central character, that if you don't somehow connect with him, all is lost. The script is so dark that it would take either a magician or a chameleon to draw out the comedy in the character. I can imagine it looked much funnier on paper with the writer interpreting it in a way the actors seem incapable of. Much of the dialogue and many of the actions feel nothing but mean-spirited. Marrying family dysfunction and comedy isn't impossible, but it is difficult. But it always feels like Conrad is laughing at his characters and not with them. You get the impression that he doesn't like them very much and sees anyone as fair game. So he pokes fun at Spritz's overweight daughter and his breakdown in relations with his ex-wife. There are so many deep issues in the film (David's father's terminal cancer, his son's brush with a predatory paedophile) that the plotting often feels like a year's worth of "Eastenders" storylines compressed into a couple of hours. And the way each of them is treated makes it feel as though the writer is trying to emotionally blackmail the audience. What the script lacks is subtlety and an off switch for all the issues. Without it you simply feel as though you're laughing inappropriately if you laugh at all.

Michael Caine wheels out another of his avuncular turns as David's Pulitzer Prize-winning father. He's blunt but warm and breathes life into the character, though he still hasn't mastered a decent American accent. Hope Davis plays the put-upon ex-wife well enough, but occasionally comes across as either a wet blanket or a harridan. There aren't enough gradations between her reactions to David, but I think this is more to do with the writing than Davis' performance. She's at the end of her tether and it's easy to see she regards her ex as a danger to herself and children.