Torture, cinema style

If you need one hour and 47 minutes of sheer, unrelenting torture, then by all means move The Break-Up to the top of your Netflix queue. It is utter torture, a purely unpleasant cinematic experience with two of the most likeable stars from TV and films wasted in a bickering and senseless feud. Who wouldn't want to see the celluloid dating antics of Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn, but for some reason, the filmmakers pit the duo against each other after 10 minutes into the film. We watch them break up and maintain a seething time-out as the couple sell their stellar Chicago condo. For such a large and roomy dwelling, this is a spectacularly clammy and claustrophobic experience.

Aniston looks terrific if Vaughn looks like he might need an intervention from his fratboy days as a binge-drinker and party regular. Some weeks at a spa might be good for the bloated character actor.

I did like one aspect of the movie: Aniston walks naked past Vaughn who was deep in the throes of a video game. Here is a king dork -- seen shouting smack at a 12 year-old over John Madden Football - who witnesses what he is stubbornly allowing to slip through his fingers. She glides back to her room -- no body double -- and we hope onto a better movie career.