Raunchy, half-baked 'Unfinished' falls flat

About halfway into the comedy Unfinished Business — when Vince Vaughn finds himself in a bar bathroom with an, ahem, German sausage party going on during a gay fetish festival — one has to wonder if he wishes his usual partner Owen Wilson was around.

Instead, Vaughn is teamed with Dave Franco and Tom Wilkinson for a bland road-trip film that falls flat while heaping on the raunchiness. There is actually a heartwarming drama about a father and his kids at its heart, but Unfinished Business (** out of four; rated R; opens Friday nationwide) spends too much time on egregiously unfunny jokes involving sexual positions and Fifty Shades of Grey.

A year after mineral salesman Dan Trunkman (Vaughn) pulls a Jerry Maguire and leaves a company to start his own — with aging Timothy McWinters (Wilkinson) and ridiculously green Mike Pancake (Franco) in tow — they're struggling. Not only is the business not doing well but Dan's time spent traveling is not helping his two troubled children.

Dan's faced with a "Who's your daddy?" homework assignment for his daughter and can't quite get around to filling it out, and the hard-working businessman needs to land a really big deal so he can send his bullied son to a private school.

Director Ken Scott (Delivery Man) and screenwriter Steve Conrad (The Secret Life of Walter Mitty) have a relatable flick in those spots. But instead the story veers off wildly Hangover-style when the guys jet off to Germany for a business trip that keeps going wrong, be it crashing a car while trying not to hit a "reindeer," trying to wheel and deal while naked in a bathhouse, and running into their old boss (Sienna Miller).

Wilkinson's character is all over the place — wanting a prostitute one minute and fearing for his longterm job prospects the next — and is more sad than whimsical. Three's actually a crowd: A two-handed comedy with Vaughn and Franco would have worked considerably better.

Franco's somewhat slow and mumbling virgin, who is just this side of offensive, is one of the movie's bright spots. And Vaughn's everyman affability from Old School and Wedding Crashers serves him well in his role as a struggling dad.

Vaughn and Nick Frost also have a nice couple of moments as a couple of working-class dudes just trying to make it in the world, though unfortunately at the time Frost is wearing a too-tight leather outfit and looks like the husky lost member of the Village People.

It's just one of many examples that this film is just bad Business for everyone involved.