Waiting...
Starring: Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Justin Long
Written and Directed by: Rob McKittrick
Visit
the official website here!
Rating: 1 (out of 5)
Look, I've got nothing against restaurant workers. Hell, for the first 5 or so years of my working life, I was employed almost exclusively by restaurants and/or bars. It's decent, honest work, and I have a lot of respect for it.
However, what I CAN'T have respect for is a horrific, abominable abortion of a movie. Respect for something doesn't automatically translate into a pass on anything similar-industry-related. I love pornography too, but a crappy movie about pornography is still a crappy movie. Sure, I'll still rub one out when watching it, but I'll feel horrible about it later. Then again, I've been known to rub one out watching Justice League cartoons, so even that isn't much of a compliment. (In my defense, it's not my fault. Supergirl, Huntress, and Wonder Woman all have serious sweater meat.)
The point here is that Waiting... is a horrific piece of ferret shit. If I'd worked in a restaurant with the fuckers on display in this movie, I'd have quit. The only thing that this movie does correctly is make you never, EVER want to eat in a restaurant again. Hell, I'm half-tempted to stop boozing it up in restaurant/bars. I WON'T stop, but I won't say I'm not tempted.
"Hi, welcome to Shenanigans! How may we revolt you today?"
Now, since this is a movie that's ostensibly about working in the food-service industry, the best way to sum up my review is by writing it as a recipe. If you have the corresponding ingredients, feel free to try whipping it up yourself.
WAITING...the recipe
Take:
2
parts Clerks
1 part Office Space
1 part Van Wilder
Place the above in a large mixing bowl, and blend.
Then, take the whole thing and smother it with about 5 gallons of SUCK.
Garnish with Luis Guzman's hairy beanbag.
Serve to an empty theatre.
The "plot" of this horrific abomination that's masquerading as a film is to show you a typical shift at a trendy chain restaurant/bar. In this case, it's called "Shenanigans". It's SUPPOSED to be Bennigan's. After all, McKittrick apparently wrote this piece of shit while working at Bennigan's. Also, it was apparently SHOT at a Bennigan's. Oddly enough, the management of Bennigan's is keeping mum about it.
Essentially, you've got your so-called main character Dean (Justin Long, who should fucking well KNOW better). He's a 22-year-old slacker dude. Even though he's smart, he's working in a restaurant instead of, you know, DOING something with his life. And you know what....he's essentially fine with that. Of course, his mother (and the movie) seem to consider this some kind of fault.
"THIS is all you're paying me to be in this thing?"
Dean finds out that an old high-school friend of his has just finished his Masters, or BA, or something. This gives him some kind of wake-up call, causing him to question his choice of vocation. Of course, a few hours before this, he was the happiest guy alive. Message 1: If you LIKE your job, but could be doing "better" things, then you're a loser.
Just after showing up for work, he's pulled into a meeting with restaurant manager Dan (David Koechner). He's offered a promotion to Assistant Manager. But, you see, Dan is a bit of a douchebag with a penchant for young girls. Somehow, in the twisted logic of the movie, accepting a promotion means Dean would also become a douchebag, and everybody that works at the restaurant - his friends - would wind up hating him or something. Indeed, as soon as rumour spreads that he's been offered the job, the collection of retarded rhesus monkeys that consist of the "staff" star treating him differently. Message 2: No matter how hard you work, if you become "The Boss" then you're an asshole, even if you deserve the extra money and responsibility.
Let's take a look at some of the jerks that work at Shenanigans, shall we?
"Hello. I'm Ryan, and I'll be your smarmy douchebag today..."
There's Monty (Ryan Reynolds). He's a smug, smart-alecky prick. He ALSO has a thing for underaged girls, but since he's apparently funny, HIS pedophilia is acceptable. Now, I don't have anything against Ryan Reynolds per se. I think he's capable of some decent work, and anyone who can get away with calling Parker Posey a "cock-juggling thunder-cunt" is ok in my books. But he's an insufferable ass-tard here.
Then there's Raddimus (Luis Guzman), one of the chefs. He's the most diverse character here, in that he has TWO horrible aspects to his personality. #1 is that he's a sex addict. #2 is the game he's invented.
Here are the rules of this game: trick one of the other male employees into looking at your penis or testicles. You get bonus points for contorting your genitalia into weird, "Puppetry Of The Penis"-esque positions. If you succeed, you get to kick your fellow employee in the ass and call him a fag. Raddimus spends pretty much the entire movie playing this game...which means he's constantly handling his junk, then PREPARING PEOPLE'S FOOD.
Here's the saddest part...this aspect of the movie is one of the funniest things about it, and I have to confess, I laughed pretty hard a couple of times. Then again, I'm amused by the sound and smell of my own farts, so I'm not exactly on the short-list for next year's Cannes jury.
"Of COURSE I don't wash my hands. That's my secret ingredient!!"
There's Mitch (John Francis Daley, of Freaks And Geeks fame). He's a trainee. The joke with him is that he isn't allowed to finish a sentence all day. That's pretty much it. There's another cook, played by the normally hilarious comic Dane Cook...his job is to be an angry prick. Calvin (Robert Patrick Benedict) is a doormat of a man who has women constantly taking advantage of him. He's also too nervous to pee in public...so yeah, I guess he's "multi-dimensional" as well. Then there's dishwasher Bishop (Chi McBride), who apparently has the wisdom of Solomon. He's the wise one that solves people's problems...even though he's just a lowly dishwasher. GET IT? Of course, being able to tie your shoes would make you the wisest one on this crew.
And then, of course, there are the women. They have no distinct personalities at all. They're literally interchangeable. There are the 2 blondes, the lesbian bartender, and the jailbait hostess.
The only exception to the bland showing that women make here is Alanna Ubach as the world's angriest waitress. I'll admit this much...she's hilarious, and one of the few genuinely funny things in the entire picture. Of course, this is all ruined when she lifts up her skirt to display her grotesque, unkempt pubic area. (shudder)
"Serve this, special order that...I'll make them all PAY..."
And then, last and certainly least, the busboys...T-Dog and Nick. They're 2 pot-smoking white kids that think they're black. That's unfunny enough, but there's more...Nick is played by Andy Milonakis.
If you've been lucky enough to avoid Andy Milonakis, I envy you. This no-talent fucktard is best known for a bunch of retarded internet videos. The worst is "The Superbowl Is Gay", which features Milonakis playing guitar off-tune and screaming "THE SUPERBOWL IS GAY!" over and over and over again. This guy, SOMEHOW, is insanely popular with retarded Internet kids, so much so that he now has his own show on MTV. I hate him...hate, hate, HATE this little maggot. He makes Tom Green look like fucking Shakespeare. The fact that kids love this asshole just goes to prove that Roe V. Wade isn't being embraced enough. Seriously, if you're an Andy Milonakis fan, you're never allowed to visit my site again. Then again, you're probably illiterate, so you'll never read that.
Here he is folks...Andy Milonakis, being an annoying douchebag...or "funny" to the under-15 crowd. Seriously, Andy...quit now. Please.
So anyway, we spend a day with these idiots, watch them half-heartedly serve food, and see how they mishandle people's dinner. One scene, where a bitchy diner's food gets "spruced up" is quite possibly the most disgusting thing put on film since Divine ate a dog turd in Pink Flamingos. The meal gets garnished with dandruff, snot, pubic hair (or as I like to call them, "flavour spirals") and taint sweat.
The truly, TRULY sad part is the number of people posting on Internet message boards going on and on about how accurate this film is. I haven't eaten in a restaurant since seeing this film, and don't think I will be for a long, long time.
None of this would be bad if the movie was actually FUNNY. But it's not...other than Ubach and Guzman, I didn't laugh at all. The plot is non-existent and the characters are uniformly despicable. I get the feeling that writer/director McKittrick made this movie as one giant in-joke for him and his buddies. Well, they can have it.
"There there, son. NONE of us wanted to be in this movie."
The most telling thing of all comes from something that happened at the press screening. For starters, it was almost empty, and the critics who were actually there were mostly B and C grade critics, like yours truly. Toward the end of the movie, Mitch the new guy loses it and screams at everybody. He does this by saying everything that had been going through my mind for the previous 90 minutes. For example, he says to Monty "So you're the coolest guy at Shenanigans, big fucking deal! That's like being the smartest person with Down Syndrome!" The critic behind me responded by saying "Amen, brother."...and I couldn't have agreed more.
This movie wants to be the food-service equivalent of Clerks or Office Space really badly. But it fails... MISERABLY. For starters, Clerks and Office Space are two of the funniest movies ever made. But they were also smart, and featured likable - or at least INTERESTING - characters. Here, we're treated to broad stereotypes and gross-out jokes. There could potentially be a restaurant-equivalent of Clerks or Office Space. But the closest Rob McKittrick will ever get to it is seeing it in a theatre and telling everyone he knows that his movie was better. He'll be wrong, and even his closest friends will consider him a bitter asshole and a failure. Then he'll go back to work at whatever greasy spoon restaurant is stupid enough to employ him and wonder where his life went wrong.
I've seen some shitty movies this year, some of which I didn't review due to my sorta-sabbatical. Stealth, The Island, Bewitched, Be Cool, The Amityville Horror, and The Ring 2 all sucked donkey cock, but were all better than this turd. If it weren't for the suckfest that is Boogeyman, this would be the runaway winner of "Worst Movie Of The Year" award. As it is, I just resent everybody that had anything to do with making it and hope they all get dysentery from tainted food. It would be poetic justice.
Luis...Dane...how could you guys DO this to me? You used to be COOL!
Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go heat up my $2 instant rice lunch, because there's no fucking way I'm going anywhere near a restaurant for the next 10 years.
