Our hero is Tim Lippe--he is an insurance salesman from Brown Valley, Wisconsin, and he gets his big break--to go to the region's annual insurance convention.
Seriously. This really is a film about a Midwestern small-town insurance agent's journey of self-discovery. But it is good. What helps make the movie good comic relief is that the writers have a great affection for Tim, a very decent sort, and they're not afraid to show it — rare in an age when acerbic comedy is more the norm. If anything, the filmmakers have taken a calculated risk in creating characters to laugh with, rather than at.
Tim arrives at the convention and ends up having to share a hotel room with Deanzie (John O'Reilly), a man he has been warned to avoid, and a straight-arrow Ron Wilkes (Isiah Whitlock Jr.), the first black man Tim has ever encountered. Added to the cast are Anne Heche as the hot insurance hotshot and Alia Shawkat as the working girl working the convention are the crew that help Tim muddle through the series of disasters that are about to unfold.
FoWhich consists of pretty standard stuff. They rely on a mix of sex, drugs and karaoke, along with some double-dealing betrayals to propel the plot forward. All old tropes to be sure, but they do a decent job of keeping our hero off balance and the rest of us mostly entertained. If that all sounds like a lot of good, clean fun, a word of warning. There is some shockingly smutty talk thrown in--but most of the humor is old school, rooted in classic fish-out-of-water situations as Tim swings between absolute delight and total dismay at all this brave new world holds. Even Deanzie, in Reilly's good-hearted hands, grows on you after a while. It is just a nice feel good, laugh appropriately movie that skates on the edge of completely inapporpriate while maintaing itself upright and enjoyable.
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