Employee of the Month

Posted by Brian C. Gibson (brian@filmschoolrejects.com) on October 6, 2006

Release Date: October 6, 2006

Just imagine three groups of guys walking down a hallway somewhere in Hollywood a few years ago. At one end of the hallway Judd Apatow and Steve Carell are walking briskly with their script for The 40 Year Old Virgin. At the other end of the hallway Rob McKittrick is late for his meeting to present his script for the surprise hit Waiting….And all the sudden three guys named Don Calame, Chris Conroy and Greg Coolidge get off the elevator and all three groups of men just run into each other. Everyone looks down to see a jumble of pages, and Greg Coolidge bends down to pick up a few of them and later uses them to write Employee of the Month.

Zach (Dane Cook) has nonchalantly walked through life, and walked through his job for years now. He has no car, lives with his grandmother and is a box boy for Super Mart. Vince (Dax Shepard) has been employee of the month for a record tying 17 months in a row, and the 18th would award him the record and a “brand newish” Chevrolet Malibu. Amy (Jessica Simpson) is the new girl who just transferred to their store because of some romantic issues, and the word is that she only has eyes for the Employee of the Month. Zach decides to change his ways and win Amy’s heart by winning the award that has been Vince’s for 17 months in a row.

I cannot begin to tell you how disappointed I am with this movie. I just took one look and saw Dane Cook on the roster and knew I’d want to see it. The formula sounded like it would make the movie a winner. Make fun of retail, loser guy gets girl, a series of retail angst pranks…sounds like fun, but it also sounds a bit familiar. This film had no identity. It was another Hollywood rehash of something that has already been successful. The first familiarities came to mind just with the structure of the film. The retail store setting, the semi-loser protagonist, the cool guys at work who make fun of everyone and play cards in the store without any other employees knowing it, and the token Arab guy who speaks slang so it must be funny are just some examples of how this film was dying to match the charm and hilarity of The 40 Year Old Virgin.

Dane Cook, you may never win an Oscar but if there was an award for channeling the chi of Ryan Reynolds then by all means you are the victor. If you have ever seen Waiting… or Van Wilder, you might know that Ryan Reynolds typically plays an overly confident, witty, but underachieving slacker who knows the ins and outs of the institution he may work at or attend. Dane Cook must have studied hours of Ryan Reynolds footage in order to accurately portray Zach who is an overly confident, witty, but underachieving slacker who knows the ins and outs of the institution he may work at or attend.

Also, I’m tired of Hollywood still trying to keep the Napoleon Dynamite bandwagon going. Efren Ramirez was great as Pedro, but asking him to play Pedro in other films works just as well as asking John Heder to act. The chemistry that was attempted between Dax Shepard and Ramirez was just plain painful to watch. Dax Shepard was acting like a certain Globo Gym owner all throughout the film…a bit too much. Neither the film or its actors had any identity, they were all trying to be other characters from other movies and it just didn’t fit right. It was almost like trying to get two rival nursing homes to play rugby. Come to think of it, that may be more entertaining.

In short, Employee of the Month had a few laughs, but just a few. A very average film trying to liken itself to better films is almost as pointless as watching failed comedians try to act. That reminds me. Harlen Williams and Andy Dick also have roles in this film.

The Upside: Jessica Simpson didn’t try too hard and hurt herself

The Downside: Shame on Dane Cook, please cut another album.

On the Side: Afraid that Dax Shepard and Dane Cook resembled each other too much, movie execs asked Shepard to go blonde.

Final Grade: D

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