“Stolen Vacation” is a stumbling, slow-footed Mexican “vacation” comedy (titled “Viaje Todo Robado” in Spanish) that barely gets out the front door, fails to arrive at its destination and never once gets up to speed.

Comedy can be slow and deadpan and still pay off. But this is an intended “romp” broadly in the same category as “National Lampoon’s ‘Vacation'” and scores of its imitators. The one thing that makes it stand out might be how lifeless it is, first to last.

Bruno Bichir of “Sicario: Day of the Soldado” stars as a lazy lifer in an office job in 2004 Mexico City who stumbles across cash stuffed in a toilet paper roll in the bathroom who decides to use that cash to take the family on a spring vacation to the Outlet Malls of San Antonio, Texas.

It’s not wholly clear why they set this picture in that particular Mexican election year, which is acknowledged in a single scene in which Carlos, our hero, laments at the voting and the way nothing improves in their lives. But if it’s set in 2004, at least you can attempt flip phone gags and Compuserve one-liners.

I guess.

The hook here is that Carlos is under water, dodging collection calls from the note-holder on the family van. Wife and homemaker Lola (Ana Claudia Talancón, who co-starred with Bichir in “Perfect Strangers”) is in debt thanks to her addiction to bingo. Daughter Lolita (Irka Castillo) is endangering her private school scholarship by hustling “burner” CDs, which she gets her Jewish classmate and neighbor to pirate for her. And scholarship son Charlie (Germán Bracco) lies to his all-sexed-up-and-ready-to-go-to-Princeton girlfriend that he’ll be joining her there. Or maybe Harvard. Which he’ll never be able to afford.

The walls are closing in around all of them as Lola’s maid quits over non-payment, Carlos dodges an office investigation into missing funds which could put his promotion in danger, Lolita can’t deliver CDs she’s already accepted cash for and Charlie’s ability to get into any university is down to Mom paying for a placement test. Which she can’t because she’s already blown her household cash, the maid’s pay and her wedding ring gambling.

Nothing in all of that is particularly novel. Other “obstacles” to a happy family vacation include the van’s repossession and forgetting their passports. But even the simple possibilities are botched in this Diego Graue (he also directed) and Santiago Mohar Volkow screenplay. The passports turn up with a minimum of fuss, a neighbor conveniently leaves the keys to a van they can “borrow,” etc.

They run into a hostile Border Patrol agent entering Texas. His name is Rodriguez and he repeatedly demands that Carlos “address me in ENGLISH.”

Like everything else thrown at them and us, just as that might turn into an amusing if cliched episode, it’s abandoned. The shopping business is airlessly and humorlessly dizzy, the culture clash in the Tex-Mex corner of Texas comes to nothing.

The cast don’t rise above the thin material, and there it is, a “Stolen Vacation” that youd best avoid unless you’ve got 90 minutes you can afford to lose to theft.

Rating: TV-MA, a little sex, toilet humor

Cast: Bruno Bichir, Ana Claudia Talancón, Germán Bracco, Irka Castillo and Daniel Haddad

Credits: Directed by Diego Graue, scripted by Diego Graue and Santiago Mohar Volkow. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:31