Wesley Morris (man, I miss reading his reviews on Grantland every week) called this movie "sneak attack romance." It is also sneak attack comedy and character development. But the story never feels forced. Maybe that's the nuanced performances or maybe it's the little moments that make the whole thing feel genuine. I did not know these movies were still getting made, honestly. I'm glad they are. They make you laugh without punchlines, and that should not be so rare.

 Results stars Guy Pearce, Cobie Smulders, and Kevin Corrigan. Pearce and Smulders play personal trainers for an up and coming gym called Fit 4 Life. The film more or less revolves around these two. They are enjoying a decently profitable business when a bored multimillionaire (Corrigan) decides that he should try and lose some weight. So, Fit 4 Life takes him on as a client. Despite their better judgment of course. Needless to say 'Results' plays by it's own set of rules. Rules that many films today are to safe to even attempt.But this is why this film is so compelling. It feels real because there is so much that separates it from everything else. Easily, the best part of this film is in its cast. The best of the bunch being Pearce. He plays the ambitious owner of Fit 4 Life. A man that genuinely wants to do good. Even though he may not be able to get that point across without stumbling over himself countless times. But every one else does a great job as well.This may be due to impressive character writing. Few films these days put this amount of effort into molding its characters. The main three all may seem to have the same problems but it's how they handle these problems that's so compelling. Each one deals with their mid life crisis in different ways. Corrigan can't help but buy anything and everything that he thinks he needs. And Smulders jumps between jobs and men equally, in a sad attempt to try and give her life some meaning.But the back bone of 'Results' resides in its rom com structure. The film approaches this genre of film from a different direction that easily reinvigorates its familiar story line. With its impressively drawn characters at its back 'Results' hits some ludicrously funny marks. It offers a well drawn, sharp script that basks in its own awkward set pieces and dialogue. The problem with 'Results' is that the film seems to come to a head not quite halfway through the film. After this hilarious climax everything afterwards just feels like an after thought. So, nearly half of this film feels tacked on. While it wasn't noticeably bad it was certainly harder to focus on the film. Saying that this film moves at its own pace is an understatement. At best it's uneven and worst, sluggish. 'Results' is not a bad film. It's funny, fresh, and offers fleshed out characters that are performed perfectly by its cast. But, 'Results' may a bit to unconventional for its own good. It moves at an uncomfortably slow pace that is often to sluggish for its own good.

There are a few directors and writers who can get away with engaging character portraits containing little or no plot elements. Robert Altman and Noah Baumbach come to mind but they are also masters at integrating all elements of a film, so even if the narrative seems unfocused, you still get a sense of cohesion and purpose.Andrew Bujalski is not in their league and that's a shame. When I looked up his list of credits on IMDb I noticed his debut film from 2002, Funny Ha Ha, which was at the heart of the burgeoning Mumblecore movement, and which I liked a lot. Mumblecore was a school of filmmaking that took a hard left from organically structured films like Richard Linklater's Slacker, and then pushed the freeform structure ever further, relying a lot on improvisation, real-time character development, and actor camaraderie.Results has all the ingredients of a mainstream Mumblecore movie that should work (great actors, fun premise), yet it doesn't, simply because Bujalski appears to be either totally checked out of the project or perhaps he shot and wrote the movie as cooked as Kevin Corrigan's character appears to be for most of the film.I'll try to summarize the plot but it's difficult because this film has little in cohesion or logic --- characters make random choices that should be funny, quirky, or odd but only come across as tedious and contrived. Anthony Michael Hall's (in yet another odd, spaced-out walk-on performance, similar to his role in Foxcatcher) character is just such an example. Apparently Hall's physique fit the movie but his character could have been ANYONE... he is yet another sounding board for Guy Pierce and Cobie Smulders on-again/off-again romantic ping pong match that's as boring and pointless as everything else in this train wreck of a movie.According to most services that try to summarize this movie, it's thrust is Pierce and Smulders, as fitness Nazis so strident in their cult-like beliefs at times that they are almost parodies of themselves, are hired to get Corrigan's rich, depressed butt in shape. Results really doesn't do anything of the sort.I still can't understand why this movie has received consistently high ratings from critics. The film isn't even shot or cut well. Just when the film appears to be going somewhere it swerves violently into nowheres-ville. This isn't daring maverick work, it's just sloppy and incompetent and an insult to most of the actors in it's fine cast --- not to mention a somewhat dirty trick as it passes itself off as a mainstream film that has virtually nothing to offer a mainstream audience. At least with Funny Ha Ha, indie audiences knew they were getting anything but.

I found the movie slightly amusing, but just slightly. It have a few laughs here and there. They attempt to be quirky, and I guess in a since that did work out for them, but the quirky was not all that entertaining.The movie starts out pretty strong, but once you get half way through, you can feel it lagging, and I just wanted to end. It's a romantic comedy that has not surprises so you know they'll stay with the formula, so there was no need to drag it out, but the filmmakers do.Which is too bad, because it's worth seeing for the acting talents of Guy Pearce,Cobie Smulders and Kevin Corrigan, but you have too sit through a lot of useless time for that talent.