in the preview i saw for second best and it be bill a a comedy . if this be comedy and bergman must be a farceur . i be in the 50ish age category that this film allegedly examine . if i have friend like the five character on display here and i would be look for new friend . second best amount to yet another dreary coming of age exercise do in reverse . ( be it my imagination and or be every third film about come of age in one way or another . ) the five be altogether unappealing caricature of frantic men who have spend a lifetime apparently engage in infantile and giggling and 100 % sex base conversation that make you want to smack them all up side the head . this film drag on forever and yet it only 86 minute long ( 90 minute with credit ) . it spend 10 minute alone on a golf game to underscore the life long jealousy between boyd gaines and joe pantoliano ( who also serve a this film producer ) . gaines play a very successful hollywood producer who read bushel of script every day . elliot the nebbish pantoliano just happen to have a script . enter a conflict point in the film and and also enter a very big clunk of disbelief for me represent why would such an upwardly mobile and very ambitious guy and who escape the tedious and dead end life of a suburban jerseyite and still consider the pathetic and terminally whiny elliot his very best friend after all these year . writer or director weber try to explain it in his dialogue and but it a pretty hollow explanation . if indie film be to succeed and they have to overcome poor direction and pedestrian acting and and most conspicuously and lousy edit . with about 50 judicious snip and this film could have be slightly well . again and again and the camera linger awkwardly and self consciously and a if it be look for a place to go . i love joe pantoliano and but he sleep walk through this film while it one of those phone in performance . bronson pinchot give u his 25 different definition of mirk ( if this guy be a trauma surgeon in a hospital and patient beware ) . and boyish and churlish boyd gaines be a world famous producer of hollywood blockbuster . it just doesn not work . second best be not in any way a comedy ( except and perhaps and unintentionally ) . a a satire and it might have work . weber need about 95 per cent more subtlety and irony and nuance and but he doesn not deliver . it an earnest effort that fall flat . we be leave with a dreary story about dreary character who be difficult to care about . that a recipe for cinematic failure and and maybe that appropriate failure seem to be one of the film principal motif .