According to 86 percent of the critics at Rotten Tomaotes, maybe Jeremy Piven should have stuck to the small screen and his role as Ari Gold on HBO’s “Entourage.” “The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard” movie reviews are in, and they are not good for “The Goods.”

This film has been in the works for a few years, and unfortunately director Neal Brennan might have nothing to show for it. I couldn’t find out how much it cost to make this film; maybe the filmmakers are embarassed to say because they know they might not be getting a good return on those cash advances. Here are some of the movie reviews for “The Goods.”

Ed Gonzales, Slant Magazine:

Exiting the press screening for director Neal Brennan’s The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard, I got the sense that Hollywood might never make another great comedy if it sticks to its current model of releasing schlock by conveyor belt. Seemingly picked straight out of Will Ferrell’s discard pile (questionably, though, he produced this train wreck and makes a forgettable, cringe-worthy cameo), The Goods starts out with a promising premise but quickly devolves into a mean-spirited nightmare of throwaway gags. …

The off-the-wall characters (or caricatures) that inhabit the world of the film come off as tired, mean renditions of the same, trying Ferrell formula. Fully cured of his bout with mercury poisoning, Piven serves up another exhausted take on his Entourage super agent Ari Gold, while other supporting players replicate past performances from better, and more side-splitting, films.

Christy Lemire, The Associated Press:

Enduring the soul-sucking process of buying a used car is bad enough. Watching a movie about soulless used-car salesmen is even worse – especially when it’s a comedy that strains desperately for raunchy, politically incorrect laughs.

In theory, the pieces were there for something slightly more inspired with “The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard.”

“Chappelle’s Show” co-creator Neal Brennan directs for the first time (from a script by Andy Stock and Rick Stempson), and the large ensemble cast features Jeremy Piven, David Koechner, Ving Rhames, Ed Helms, Tony Hale and Ken Jeong. A lot of improv supposedly went on, as well, as you might expect in a movie from Will Ferrell and Adam McKay’s Gary Sanchez Productions. After all, these are the people behind “Anchorman” and “Talladega Nights.”

But this time, except for a couple of amusing lines here and there, the results just feel flat and generally unpleasant. Every character is singularly unlikable, but beyond that, they’re drawn so one-dimensionally that they’re not even interesting.

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe

The government recently decided to subsidize the purchase of new automobiles for Americans driving alleged junk. The program is called Cash for Clunkers. But anyone looking for a cheap, timely vicarious alternative might try “The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard,’’ a comedy set on a used-car lot in Temecula, Calif. You put up the cash, the movie clunks.

Elizabeth Fairchild, Personal Money Store

Despite these awful reviews, I will probably still go see this movie. I don’t really know why. Maybe it’s because I am a big fan of Ed Helms. Maybe it’s because my boyfriend wants to see it. Maybe because I only seem to like comedies when it comes to movies, so I have to take what I can get. Or maybe it’s because this guy liked it:

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

“The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard” is a cheerfully energetically and very vulgar comedy. If you’re okay with that, you may be okay with this film, which contains a lot of laughs and has studied Political Correctness only enough to make a list of groups to offend. It takes place after a failing car dealer calls in a hired gun and his team to move goods off the lot over the Fourth of July.

Reviews of the movie itself aren’t inherently bad. But many well-respected critics out there agree that Cruise is not one of the highlights.

Crushing quotes

“Cruise is both the central figure in ‘Valkyrie’ and its weakest link. He’s distractingly bad in this … With his hard, flat American accent, he stands out in every single scene. And he’s not a good enough actor to immerse himself in this kind of period piece.” – Christy Lemire, Associated Press.

“Arguably miscast, Cruise is stiff and unconvincing as the courageously heroic German officer.” – Emanuel Levy, Cinema 24/7.

Mixed reviews

Some movie reviewers out there seem to be trying a bit too hard to see the bright side.

“Hearing Cruise’s American accent is jarring at first. But his British co-stars, including Kenneth Branagh, Tom Wilkinson and Eddie Izzard, don’t sound German either.” – Rolling Stone.

Hmm, I think perhaps the RS was trying to sound somewhat positive but, “His coworkers sound bad, too,” doesn’t sound like a compliment to me.

The good with the bad

Reviews of Cruise’s performance are generally negative or somewhat neutral. There are positive ones out there, too, but they leave me wondering if they’re rooted in loyalty that formed around “Top Gun” at an impressionable age.

The majority of the film’s reviews, however, are pretty good. At rottentomatoes.com, 64 percent of the critics gave it positive reviews. Granted, this is only 1 percent higher than the reviews for “Marley & Me,” a film whose central character is a dog.

Kirk Honeycutt at THR Intelligence calls “Valkrie” “a coolly efficient, entertaining and straightforward tale.” Hm, that doesn’t sound so bad. At least the rest of the cast won’t need to worry about a payday loan any time soon.

Too little too late?

Image via Wikipedia

Levy  makes the point in his article that “Valkyrie” is a “vehicle to re-energize Tom Cruise’s troubled career.” We haven’t seen any blockbusters on the level of the “Mission: Impossible” series since that mission was completed. For years he got nothing but bad press covering his craziness and skewering his adamant defense of Scientology. Now he bombs in a much-anticipated film with a Christmas Day release date. It could be that the Cruise ship has sailed.

Of course, Tom Cruise will never need a payday loan, but if he wants to apply for one, just for fun, he’d better do it while he still has a payday coming up.