thoughts on Delivery Man

Vince Vaughn stars as David Wozniak, who makes deliveries for his family's butcher shop and has a knack for getting himself into ridiculous situations.  He won't let his girlfriend Emma (Cobie Smulders) come over anymore because he doesn't want her to know he's trying to grow pot.  He currently owes some mobster types $80,000 for reasons that I was never exactly clear on.  Emma tells him in an early scene that she's pregnant, but she's doubtful whether she can count on him to step up and be a father.

He soon finds himself in another ridiculous situation.  Apparently, when he was in his twenties, he donated a ridiculous amount of sperm to a sperm bank and is now the biological father of 533 kids.  He signed a confidentiality agreement when he donated the sperm, but now 142 of the kids are suing the sperm bank to try to find out his identity.  He is given a manila envelope with information about the 142 kids, and he starts paying them visits without telling them who he is.  He has fathered quite the assortment of children, it turns out (all of whom are now in their late teens or early twenties).  There is a wannabe actor who David covers for at work so that he can go on an audition.  There is an NBA basketball player.  There is a young woman who he saves from a drug overdose.  There is a young man with cerebral palsy.

What I have just given you is maybe the first third of the movie, and it's pretty good.  David and the people in his world are likable, as are many of the kids.  After a point, though, there's just too much going on.  One somewhat creepy kid figures out who he is and tries to get closer to him while keeping David's identity from the others.  David's lawyer and friend, Brett (Chris Pratt), suggests that David countersue to keep his identity a secret.  David doesn't really want to, but he needs to pay off the mobsters.  Also, he's trying to prove himself to Emma...all the while keeping this HUGE secret from her.  "I can't do this without you," he tells her at one point.  "Can't you?" I asked aloud (my two friends and I were the only ones in the theater).  He supposedly wants to build a life with her, but he's not telling her about a huge thing happening in his life.  Why is she in this movie, even? Supposedly her pregnancy is the thing that makes him want to grow up and figure himself out, but it's really his interactions with the kids that do that.

So...it was okay.  I liked most of the characters, but the story (which, granted, was fairly ridiculous from the beginning) lost me after a point.