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by Willie Waffle

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Employee of the Month

I’m certain Jessica Simpson, one of the stars of Lionsgate’s Employee of the Month, has absolutely no chance of winning that award for the studio after everyone sees how horribly she performs in a movie that doesn’t exactly raise the bar for comedy in the Cineplex.     

Dane Cook stars as Zack – the slacker box boy at Super Club (think Sam’s Club or Costco).  He has been happy to coast through the world of warehouse stores for the past 10 years, but Zack’s attitude changes when a beautiful new cashier with a predilection for sleeping with the employee of the month, Amy (Jessica Simpson), is transferred to their store.  Now, Zack wants to do everything possible to win the award and steal the fair maiden’s heart, but Vince (Dax Shepherd) – an employee who has won Employee of the Month 17 months in a row, and stands to get a huge promotion and newish car if he wins one more time – will not be denied.         

Who will be Employee of the Month?

Director Greg Coolidge and writers Don Calame and Chris Conroy had a chance to make a classic movie capturing the wild antics and neuroses of retail workers in America, but instead of getting another Office Space or 9 to 5, Coolidge delivers a movie full of fart jokes and longing shots of Simpson’s large breasts (they’re in the movie so much they should get a co-star credit).  Employee of the Month still has some small laughs, but nothing memorable as the movie fails to be a crazy and outrageous as it wants to be, and becomes much too serious towards the end.  Even Andy Dick is boring.  However, the movie’s largest failing is the use of Simpson. 

Shepard makes something out of his character as he goes for the wacky level everyone else should be striving to accomplish.  He defines Vince as a suck up and the type of coworker we have all loathed at some point in our working lives.  Meanwhile, Cook finds some moments to make us laugh as he attempts to do his best Bill Murray impression (which isn’t very good), but needs more script development to make him a lovable loser (the development comes too late for us to care, and too late for Cook to take advantage of it to make us like Zack more). 

However, Simpson has the charisma and screen presence of a wet towel.  She has been hired for her body and nothing else, which makes her the most expensive mannequin in the history of the world.  Simpson seems spaced out and detached throughout the movie, barely reciting her lines with the energy of a log and finding herself pushed to the background as Zack and Vince are supposedly fighting for her.  It’s almost as if she is watching all of the actors.    

Coolidge and the gang could have made Employee of the Month a better movie by creating more dirty tricks for Zack and Vince to play on each other, a crazier ending and much more commentary on what it’s like for adults to be working in retail instead of factories or white collar jobs. 

½ Waffle (Out Of 4)

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