Russell Durrell (Vince Vaughn) moves to rural Kansas with his son Calvin after getting fired as a trial lawyer in Chicago. His wife Kate (Monica Potter) abandoned them leaving the family shattered. Russell got a job working for his school friend and is coaching the high school basketball team. Noah is one of his troubled players. Russell starts going out with Noah's older sister Beth Ward (Joey Lauren Adams). Their lives are further complicated when Kate shows up.

This is like Kramer vs Kramer but it doesn't have the same touching emotions. The kid is rather bratty and bitter. It's not unreasonable but it's off-putting. The movie tries to give him some humor with the female anatomy but it doesn't really work. Vaughn has the same feel. The three leads are great. It might be useful to see what happened in Chicago. Something is wrong with this movie but it's nothing glaring.

Guess what, Vince Vaughn can really act and it is about time that he be used more in mature subject matters. He is quite effective here in the role of a father who is forced to take care of his little boy when the wife and mother goes off to her sister's engagement party and never returns after 18 months.

While the premise may be a little silly to believe, Vaughn gives it his all and in certain ways reminded me of Dustin Hoffman's "Kramer vs. Kramer."

The little boy is adorable and appealing in the role. The film works because it deals with maturity and responsibility in a very apt way.

Vaughn is an attorney who also dabbles in coaching basketball in the film. One of his renegade players has a sister and you know the rest.

"A Cool, Dry Place" puts Vince Vaughn in the vortex of choices created by the return of an estranged wife, a son in his sole custody, a lover, a major career move, and a job as a High School basketball coach. This even-tempered film finds a pleasant middle ground between hardcore reality and melodrama as it shows the audience how, perhaps, the best thing we can all have in life is as simple as "a cool, dry place".