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THE EX

What You Need To Know:

THE EX is the story of Tom, a new father and career underachiever who must come to grips with his adult life and become the sole provider for his wife, Sofia, and their new child. Tom and his family move to Ohio so Tom can work for Sofia’s father. At his new job, Tom is miserable. His father-in-law’s advertising firm is a lot more like pre-school than real life, and Sofia's ex-boyfriend, Chip, is the biggest bully on the playground. Even though he is wheelchair-bound, Chip will stop at nothing to sabotage and paralyze Tom in his new position. Tom must defeat Chip at his own game, win the respect of his coworkers and his father-in-law, and secure the affection of his wife before he loses everything.

THE EX has some laugh-out-loud moments of physical comedy, but the movie leans too heavily on raunchy, sex-based humor. The foul language is excessive, and some characters are flat and one-dimensional. The actors do well with the material they have, but the script uses caricatures as the punch line of a joke rather than reality-based, three-dimensional people in captivating situations.

Content:

(ABABAB, RoRo, C, Ho, LLL, VV, SSS, N, A, DD, MM) Strong immoral and anti-biblical worldview with crass and sexual humor as well as elements of Romanticism that extols emotion and passion as well as some homosexual content, some slight redemptive elements as married couple learn to communicate and work through their problems and husband makes a statement about a message from God; 32 obscenities (one "f" word), three profanities and a young boy makes a crude gesture; strong, mostly comedic violence includes a food fight between two cooks and their boss, a young boy watches professional wrestling on TV, wheelchair basketball game turns into a brawling contest, married couple in counseling uses foam bats to “tap” out their frustration with each other, but the “tapping” turns into hitting one another pretty hard, a disabled man is thrown down a flight of stairs, man crashes on his bike twice, two men fight in a comedic showdown by wrestling, punching and kicking each other, a skateboarder misses a rail and wrecks, and a man is hit by an oncoming bus; strong sexual content includes a lot of sexual discussion including talk of Internet pornography, jokes about genitalia, conversations about promiscuous sex and arousal, woman admits to having pre-marital sex while still in high school, homosexual pornography, two men kissing briefly depicted on a man’s work computer; husband kisses his wife’s shoulder and cleavage, breast-feeding mother puts a balm on her breasts, some homosexual sadism jokes made, passionate kissing between married couple and husband grabs his wife’s buttocks, and implied fornication; nudity includes naturalistic upper male nudity, a man in boxers, a few shots of a woman’s cleavage, and a handicapped man is nude in his wheelchair and is seen nude from the side; a few brief instances of alcohol including beer and whiskey; one drug reference as husband tells his pregnant wife who is in labor that he can “score her some weed” to relieve her pain; and, strong miscellaneous immorality includes several characters lying and deceiving each other as well as lying to their clients, and a boss makes a slight racial slur to one of his chefs, two men seek revenge on each other, and several jokes are made at the expense of a physically disabled person.

More Detail:

THE EX is the story of Tom (Zach Braff), a new father and career underachiever who must come to grips with his adult life and become the sole provider for his wife, Sofia (Amanda Peet), and their new child by going to work for his father-in-law (Charles Grodin). However, Tom’s new job is not all he had hoped as he finds himself both working with and yet pitted against his arch-nemesis, Chip (Jason Bateman), a disabled man who just happens to be Sofia’s ex-boyfriend and who just happens to hate Tom.

After losing yet another job on the day of his child’s birth, Tom takes it as a sign from God that perhaps he and Sofia need to move out of New York City and head to Ohio so Tom can work for Sofia’s father. Tom steps into his new job; and, immediately, he is miserable. His father-in-law’s advertising firm is a lot less like real life and a lot more like pre-school than Tom would hope, and Chip is the biggest bully on the playground.

Even though he is wheelchair-ridden, Chip does everything he can to paralyze Tom in his new position. From sabotaging Tom’s ideas to lying to Tom’s clients, Chip continues to demoralize and attack Tom in every way imaginable. Chip’s hatred of Tom is rooted in one thing: he used to date Sofia. Now, Chip wants her back, and he will stop at nothing to make sure Tom is out of the picture. Tom must find a way to defeat Chip at his own game, win the respect of his coworkers and his father-in-law, and secure the affection of his wife before he loses everything.

THE EX has some laugh-out-loud moments of physical comedy, but the movie leans too heavily on raunchy, sex-based humor. The foul language is excessive, and some of the characters are flat and one-dimensional. The actors do well with the material they have been given, but the script uses caricatures as the punch line of a joke rather than reality-based, three-dimensional people. So, at times, the characters and the story make the movie feel too much like an episode of sitcom television rather than a major motion picture.

With strong sexual humor as well as foul language and other objectionable content, THE EX is excessive, and media-wise people of faith do not need to waste their time on it.