One of the best jokes in the film

One of the best jokes in the film is a running gag about Glover's character's arm being chopped off. When we meet him in 2010, he has one arm and is a miserable prick. However, in 1986 we find that he's very friendly and has both his arms. Over and over the guys watch as Glover looks as if he's about to lose his arm in one ridiculous scenario after another, and Lou cheers for it to happen, only to be disappointed as each time Glover escapes unscathed, and blissfully unaware of his predestination. The "suspense" builds for Lou and us as we anticipate how exactly the limb gets severed. Funny stuff.

Soon, a girl walks into Adam's life, giving him a second chance at a happy marriage. She is such a one-dimensional and unconsidered part that one could say it's a huge step backward for roles for women. The film doesn't bother to make her anything more than a symbol, legs metaphorically spread, giving sage advice to our male lead while patiently waiting around for him to get over his phobias and make a decision. It's a throwaway plotline, dragging the rest of the movie down. The sooner we're done with these scenes the better, and they are mercifully short. The film is decidedly made by, for and about men, and so the lack of any serious consideration of a female point of view is not really a surprise.

There are some serious matters at hand here, and they're handled in a way that isn't preachy and doesn't interfere with the comedy. The movie is really about how one lets his closest friends down consistently through selfish behavior, and about aging's negative effects on one's social life causing overdependence on committed relationships that often turn out to be not as loving as you originally hoped. Lou's desperate antics manage to be both outrageously funny and still very much credible as the manic energy of a man trying desperately to stay one step ahead of his anxieties, and I mean that as a big compliment to Corddry, who is the heart and soul of this film. He sells the genuine desperation of his character in a way that Cusack doesn't even attempt. (Cusack sleepwalks through the picture, as he's been doing for years now.) The movie has a whitewash happy ending, which is both consistent with its genre but also necessary as a tonic for the depressing implications of its more serious undertones. In the end, it locates a justification and a place for these kinds of movies, because adult life can be painful and we need larger-than-life delusions to help keep us sane. Remaking your present by changing the mistakes you made in the past is exactly the kind of fantasy that can provide such relief, so let us (men) take the bait and revel in it.