“Good, but Unoriginal”

“Hotshots” looks at a movie!

Jeff, Who Lives at Home may strike you as being familiar as you reach the end, which once again proves what I have been saying for years: Hollywood has run out of ideas.

If you have seen the 1998 Simon Birch, when you get to the climax in this movie, everything that leads up to it will suddenly become clear and you will quickly realize that you might have been watching a remake, only with the title character of this movie grown up from the title character of the previous movie.

However, the biggest clue comes at the beginning of the movie when Jeff says in a voice-over, “I can’t help but wonder about my fate.”

Jeff is played by Jason Segal, he is 30 years old, he lives in the basement of his mother’s house, and he believes that everything happens for a reason.

So, when he answers the phone and the caller is looking for someone named Kevin, that starts a series of events that guides Jeff through the rest of the movie, and they are mostly comic events.

Jeff’s mother, Sharon, played by Susan Sarandon, also calls Jeff from her workplace, and she sends Jeff on an errand that contributes to this day in the life of Jeff, who lives at home, also.

Then there is Pat, Jeff’s older brother who is played by Ed Helms. Pat is married, although there are problems in the marriage, and Pat doesn’t help their problems any when he surprises his wife by buying a new Porsche that they can’t afford.

The story takes place in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and thus it is possible that Jeff and Pat could run into each other while Jeff is out fulfilling his errand, it is possible that while Pat is showing off his new Porsche to Jeff that they happen to see Pat’s wife and believe that she is having an affair with the man she is meeting, and it is also possible that the subplot involving their mother with a co-worker could bring everyone and everything together for the climax at the end.

And, yes, it is possible that the filmmakers of this movie didn’t realize they were copying the plot of that previous movie, only with grownups instead of kids.

Jeff, Who Lives at Home is good, but not original.

I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”