Employee of the Month
What do you get when you throw together two bankable but cheesy stars into a hodge-podge of lame jokes, a series of mildly laughable gags all balanced oh-so-precariously on one of the hokiest storylines in years? You get Employee of the Month: the smashingly simple screenplay follow-up to Greg Coolidge's equally silly Sorority Boys. Kudos to Coolidge, for he has cornered the market on ridiculous plotlines and lazy screenplays. Barely teetering on the novelty of a unique, ridiculous as it may be, storyline and those one-chuckle gags, the likeability of Dane Cook and Jessica Simpson is, oddly, the only thing that salvages Employee of the Month from complete worthlessness--- barely.
In a parallel universe, there apparently exists a microcosmic community in which the ladder of success is dumbed down to allow for lesser achievers like Zack (Dane Cook) and Vince (Dax Shepard). A decade into the business of warehouse meniality, Vince has managed to climb the rungs all the way up to top cashier while Zack remains in the lowliest position: box-boy. In Costco-topia, this translates to Vince being near movie star status with Zack lagging behind as a nobody. I actually kind of liked this notion of redefining the American ideals of success but then, in true Hollywood fashion, they had to go and explain it all away. Apparently being stuck in the warehouse work treadmill is not an acceptable way of life as Zack merely ended up there when his dot.com biz failed. In fact, all of his loser-like qualities are explained away. For example, he lives with his Grandma merely because he has a gentle soul because, as the film implies, had he been living with his mom that would just be weird. Also, he doesn't bother to try to grow within his job only because his morale was once crushed, and that has nothing to do with his just being lazy. I would have much preferred to just accept that he was a bit of a loser rather than having all of these convenient explanations crammed down my throat at every turn.
One of the most insulting aspects of the film, though, is found in that tendency for screenplay writers to think they can convince us that something is true simply because they say so. We may be easily brainwashed Americans, but we do occasionally think. For instance, the Vince character is so obviously smarmy and repugnant and, yet, we are to believe that he has everyone fooled into thinking he's a great guy except for the oh-so-intuitive box-boy, Zack? Or what about the fact that it is barely acceptable to have the storyline hinge on Jessica Simpson's Amy, the new cashier, and her supposed attraction only to those who earn the coveted employee of the month award. But then we must also believe that Zack is suddenly inspired to achieve this glory himself and Vince is the one person who can stand in his way? Just because Coolidge tells us that this is a viable premise does not mean we have to believe it. Yet, plenty of films are fashioned in this same way. They tell us to believe that someone is unattractive because she wears glasses and floral bag dresses, so we must simply buy into it.
Cook and Simpson, bad actors they may be, do have some type of charisma that makes them interesting to observe and the film's placement of jokes like imagining that the employees of warehouse-type stores build clubhouses in the nooks above the sea of boxes above all of the fracas of the store adds some salvaging appeal to Employee of the Month. But, really, did Coolidge think he could get away with this? Well apparently he did, and apparently he can. I and many others plunked down our change in order to see it.
Grades
Overall: C+
Story: C+
Acting:C
Visuals: C
Originality/Innovation: C
Enjoyability: B-
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