Failure to reach full potential

As its title might suggest, “Failure to Launch” never quite gets off the ground.

Why would good-looking, semi-successful, 35-year-old Tripp (Matthew McConaughey) still be living at home? Well, besides having mom as his personal maid, it’s a great way to avoid serious relationships. The minute a girl gets serious, Tripp takes her home so she can discover that he’s never left the nest. Then she promptly break up with him.

It may be a great lifestyle for Tripp, but his parents, Sue and Al (Kathy Bates and Terry Bradshaw), want him out. When Al barges in on Tripp and his date during an intimate moment, hoping the coitus interruptus will annoy his son, little does he know he’s playing right into Tripp’s hands.

Tripp is only one of several local “failure-to-launch” sons, thirty-something men still living at home. The parents get together at a barbecue to complain, and one couple announces they have found a solution.

Enter Paula (Sarah Jessica Parker), who specializes in just this situation. She explains to Sue and Al that the most common cause for the failure-to-launch syndrome is a lack of confidence. She’ll date their son to help him build up his self-esteem and lure him out of the nest.

The premise is reminiscent of “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days” and promises to send the two insincere romantics on a collision course, giving us the joy of watching arrogance get its comeuppance. Unfortunately the film never delivers. In fact, it gets little comedy mileage out of the premise at all ? and that’s a shame, because McConaughey and Parker have some real chemistry.

Instead of devoting time to the couple’s story, the film takes long detours into segments about Tripp and his friends (Bradley Cooper and Justin Bartha) during which Tripp is bitten by various animals. In the end, we learn this was nature’s way of disapproving of Tripp’s lifestyle. The filmmakers unwisely forced the charismatic McConaughey to stumble awkwardly through pratfalls in scenes that had nothing to do with the story.

Paula’s dry, acerbic roommate, Kit (Zooey Deschanel), has some funny moments trying to deal with a mockingbird that constantly torments her with its song, but again, these scenes feel like digressions in a story that goes nowhere.

For a romantic comedy, there’s little comedy and even less romance. The only heartfelt scenes in the movie are between Tripp and his parents, when Tripp finally confronts them about why they want him out. One scene manages to be touching despite the fact that Bradshaw is naked during it.

“Failure to Launch” has some laughs, but over all, it is a movie that doesn’t know what it wants to be. It tries to be a romantic comedy, a buddy comedy and unfortunately, a goofy, cartoonish, slapstick comedy. And because it’s trying to do all three, it doesn’t do any of them successfully.