Waiting... (2005)

funny

hilarious movie with lots of laughs but it makes you not want to go to a restaurant for awhile :) August 23, 2007

I'm still waiting

Workplace comedies are something that strike a chord in us all -- most people have held less-than-glamorous tuition-paying jobs, and sometimes resented the people we have been forced to deal with politely. No tips. Annoying coworkers. Twerpy customers who just don't get it, at all.

That's the main idea of Rob McKittrick's "Waiting...", a pale imitation of Kevin Smiths' breakout film "Clerks." It could have been a delightful comedy in the vein of "Office Space," but alas, we get a pale, rather cliched comedy with a few gem-like moments.

Mitch (John Francis Daley) is starting his first day on the job at Shenanigan's, and he rapidly learns that the ropes are tangled and grubby. There's a philosophical dishwasher (Chi McBride), a smart-aleck, the nice guy with issues, a snarling dominatrix, and a sexpot waittress. And that's only the beginning...

Though Shenanigan's seems normal, there are drunken parties, crazed employees, and food seasoned with dandruff. With disdain for the customers and for each other, the employees spar, stare, and make jokes that will instantly offend gays, women and people with Down Syndrome. Can Dean (Justin Long) manage to get a decent job, or will he sink into the mire of Shenanigan's kitchen?

Anybody who has ever worked a minimum wage job like this will know that it's a gold mine for comedy. I myself have fond memories of a coworker going ballistic when a customer demanded that she spread the cream cheese for him. Unfortunately, that kind of delightful comedy isn't present. Instead, we get armpit-noise-level stuff -- bodily substances being spread on food, and so on.

Even crude films can be funny... but this one isn't. It's just moronic. McKittrick tries to spice it up with stuff like the "Penis Game" and workplace Lolitas, but it's a bit like trying to rescuscitate a week-old dead moose. Even the name of the restaurant is lame -- okay, Shenanigan's, we get it. The place has shenanigans. It's not really very funny anyway.

The characters are all cliches of the slacker worker, and they are so uniformly nasty that you really hope they rot behind those counters. It's a credit to the actors that they manage to inject any humour at all; Daley of "Freaks and Geeks" fame is the most entertaining character of all, and the only one that shows a spark of life.

The only thing that could be as bad as working at Shenanigan's is watching a gross-out comedy full of obnoxious stereotypes. You won't laugh. You'll just leave feeling bitter and queasy. July 20, 2006

Incredible

This is an incredible movie. I saw it in theatres the day it came out. I have my phone alarm set for the minute I get out of school on Febuary 7th (when it comes out on DVD) to go get it.

BUY IT January 12, 2006

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