Hi all... I had some time to kill today before my nail appointment, so I thought I'd catch an early matinee and report on it for you nice people. I figured the fans would want me to go see Martin Scorcese's new film, The Departed, and to be honest, I would have liked to have seen it too, what with Nicholson, Damon, DiCaprio, etc.
But unfortunately, an appointment is an appointment, and Pheng Wu is like the Scorcese of nails, and he's booked solid for the month... so with my 2:00, there was NO way I'd get out of the movie in time AND make the nail appointment.
So if was that I decided to catch the early-bird showing of Employee of the Month, the new comedy from Greg Coolidge starring Jessica Simpson's boobies and some guy who looked like Riker from that Star Trek TNG episode where he wore the "proto-Vulcan" make-up.
Guys, don't get your panties in a bunch... trust me when I say you do NOT want to sit through this movie, even to catch the faintest jiggle of Jessica's twins. It's just not worth it.
The film centers on Dane Cook plays Zack, which rhymes with "slack," which is what his character does. Zack works at a Costco wannabe called Super Club, where he and his pack of underdogs watches in vain each month as Vince, played by Dax Shepard, is selected for Employee of the Month for the 17th straight month in a row... if he makes it to 18, he wins a "newish" car. Jessica plays Amy, the stores new cashier with the possibly disreputable past, which causes both men to vie for her breas... er, affections. Since word on the street is that she only dates Employees of the Month, Zack decides he must take down Vince at all costs.
That's it really... the plot is paper-thin. The acting is unremarkable in most ways, with Cook showing very little charisma and Shepard figuratively sucking the life out of every scene he's in. I understand that you are supposed to find Vince repugnant, but Shepard does a really horrible job of making us care enough about Vince to hate him. Jessica plays pretty much herself, I imagine, and at the end of many of her scenes it almost seems as if she's just standing there, waiting patiently for the director to yell "cut!"
The one standout in the acting department is Andy Dick, who plays Lon, a bespectacled loser with massive coke-bottle lenses... a nerd for whom the world is one big blur. He is never looking in the same direction that everyone else is and he has many of the best lines, including the PG-13's singularly-allowed F-bomb, which he utters so wonderfully that it was worth the cost of the early-bird admission.
Tim Bagley is sort of funny as Glen Gary, the store's manager, whose older brother Glen Ross is played by Danny Woodburn, who slums it up and provides the film with some low-class "midget" humor.
Efren Ramirez also has some moments as Jorge, Vince's wingman and wannabe-protogé, and the two share a sort of strange master/pupil homoerotic relationship that provides for a few laughs. Ramirez, who everyone remembers as Pedro in Napoleon Dynamite, sort of looks like a cross between Johnny Depp and Ren the chihuaha from Ren and Stimpy. His underplayment of his part contrasts well with Shepard, who, as I mentioned earlier, is busily sucking the life out of his scenes with aimless ad-libbing. I can't understate how horrible Shepard is as Vince.
And as thin as the plot is, the movie goes on forever... with VERY little comedy bang for the buck. While there are a few humorous moments, the film tries WAY too hard to make you laugh, and you actually become embarassed for the actors as you watch them mug it up for a camera that doesn't know when to stop. It's almost as if the entire film is made of the "deleted scenes" section of the DVD release. Towards the end, you'll find yourself looking at your watch thinking, "when will this END?" Seriously, they could have chopped out SO much fluff in the beginning and middle to crank this puppy out in under 90 minutes, but combined with trailers, expect to find yourself in the theater for 2 hours.
I ALMOST missed my nail appointment, which is another reason to say this movie sucked.
Oh, and keep the kiddies home... the film earns its PG-13 rating with lots of sexual innuendo that isn't so much innuendo as it is blatant references to "doin' the nasty." This public service message was brought to you by the Movie MILF.
