The Watch is hard to watch. Not just because it flails about in tone and narrative, but because it also commits grotesque lapses in good taste. Starting with the title: originally Neighborhood Watch, it was changed after the Trayvon Martin shooting. But no such discretion is shown with a montage in which the buffoonish vigilantes of the title pose for pictures with a dead alien, à la Abu Ghraib. Ben Stiller labors with this mess as Evan, a suburban Costco manager who forms a squad of volunteers after a grisly murder in his store. He enlists Bob (Vince Vaughan), a bumptious family man; Franklin (Jonah Hill) a brooding militia type; and Jamarcus (Richard Ayoade), a guy from Britain. You'd think director Akiva Schaffer could generate some comic chemistry with these four talents. Instead they sputter about, indulging in semen jokes. Several involve Evan's feeble sperm count. Both he and the movie are shooting blanks.
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