How many nights we've all lain awake, staring at the crown moldings on the ceiling and pondering an existential question: Which is funnier, Scrubs or Arrested Development? Apparently our collective unconscious has produced a result, in the form of a head to head throw down between the two male leads, feature-film style. And so we have The Ex—an improvement over the long-standing original title, Fast Track (though director Jesse Peretz could have pulled a Dave Eggers and called it A Poignant Cinematic Chef D'Oevre, and it wouldn't have made much difference).

Protagonist Tom Reilly (the cloying-on-cue Braff) is an Everychef, toiling away in a tony Manhattan eatery and trying to do right for his hyper young wife (Amanda Peet) and their new baby. After finding himself canned for insubordination, he and the little missus, a former lawyer-turned-full-time mom who apparently never heard of maternity leave, head back to her Ohio hometown, where Braff takes a job at her father (Charles Grodin)'s absurdly new age advertising firm. Of course, little does our budding ingénue know that lurking in the cubicle down the row is Chip Sanders (Bateman), Peet's high school ex with an ax to grind. He's ruthless, scheming, obsessed with his old flame, and determined to break up the marriage, all from the confines of a wheelchair. The resulting antics range from professionally humiliation to a Murderball-esque basketball game. You can just picture what went down during the studio pitch for this one.

Bateman is the clear winner in this comedic stand-off, though he teeters on overkill a few times with the diabolical looks and sycophantic pining. Braff does what Braff is there to do in movies—make vacant faces behind that impressive schnoz and throw cute little self-aware looks at the camera conveying what a joke it all is. Grodin looks like he's aged around 60 years since his last film appearance in 1994 (in It Runs In The Family, in which he played, prophetically, The Old Man). Mia Farrow is barely a blip on the radar screen as the milquetoast mother-in-law, though the idea that Peet could be Rosemary's Baby made her "disaffected new mommy" character a bit more appealing. Maybe the whole idea is meant as a reverse-psychology lesson for modern baby-ready women: No matter what, don't quit your day job.—Melissa Lafsky

LINK
• Official site