The Playlist

Overrated screenwriter Allan Loeb is curiously one of the most in-demand writers in Hollywood right now, and we're beginning to understand why. His screenplays tend to sell high-concept work which makes executives and producers feel good about themselves, but the actual execution undermines whatever originality and vigor the original premise may have had, keeping things safe for mainstream audiences to embrace without thinking too much, which makes studio heads happy. But if you look closer, Allan Loeb seems to be writing the same script over and over with entire plots hanging on one character struggling to tell somebody the secret he's holding. Exhibit 1: "The Switch" spent nearly half its running time with Jason Bateman agonizing over whether or not to tell Jennifer Aniston that it's actually his sperm she used to have a child. Exhibit 2: In "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps" Shia LaBeouf could have avoided a world of hurt he had just been honest with his girlfriend, Carey Mulligan, about what he was doing with her Dad. Which brings us to Exhibit 3: "The Dilemma." Once again, a character grapples for the majority of the film's running time with a should I?/shouldn't I? situation, in this case it's whether or not to tell his best friend that his wife is cheating on him. Yes, "The Dilemma" is another one of those movies where you're going to wait for somebody to stop acting like an idiot and do what most normal people would do without hesitation. It's pretty painful.