The Superior Employee Of The Month: Mitch Rouse Makes A Refreshingly Dark Satire!

The Good: Funny, Dark, Well-written, Develops very well
The Bad: Moments of performance
The Basics: Employee Of The Month is a strong anti-capitalist satire that takes an abrupt, but well-constructed, turn in the last fifteen minutes into an entirely different type film.


For the last few years, pretty much since the moment we met, my wife has wanted me to watch the film Employee Of The Month. Initially, this made me queasy, as I thought it meant she liked films like the movie by that name with Dane Cook and Jessica Simpson (reviewed here!). Fortunately for me, she meant the dark satire Employee Of The Month with Matt Dillon, Christina Applegate, and Dave Foley. Also fortunately for the both of us, after years of waiting, Employee Of The Month lived up to her memories and my expectations.

Unfortunately, Employee Of The Month is a movie one cannot fully discuss or appreciate without spoiling the end. I, however, refuse to do that. As a result, I shall say that Employee Of The Month takes an abrupt left turn in the final fifteen minutes, turning from a dark, character-driven story of a man whose luck takes a turn for the absolute worst, into a Bound-like crime/heist film that bears almost no resemblance to the socially-relevant anti-capitalist film that preceded it. Without spoiling the end, one of the only real problems with Employee Of The Month (that can be discussed without ruining it) is that much of the film is telegraphed by the acting and the plot points. To be honest, I did not call the end (at all), but when the abrupt bank robbery occurs, the moment David’s body is taken by the robbers, the rest of the film did seem surprisingly formulaic.

It is not at all enough to make Employee Of The Month not worth watching. In fact, this is one of the best, underrated, films I have seen in quite a while.

David Walsh is an unhappy employee at North & Wells Bank, where he has worked for two years, struggling to get ahead. Two days before his benefits are supposed to kick in, he is fired by the head of the branch. His screw-up friend, Jack, who was responsible for the burns that David bears on half his body to this day, crashes his engagement party and makes his dislike of his fiancé, Sara, quite clear. But, the night he is fired, Sara’s parents come to town and Sara dumps David at the restaurant they have dinner at, using David’s affair with Wendy (who also works at the bank) as her primary reason for leaving him.

So, David gets a gun, spends the night hanging out with Jack, and prepares for the next day when he intends to go to work and kill his co-workers at North & Wells.

Employee Of The Month seems, for almost the entire movie, like a dark character study of a man who is pushed to the edge by a capitalistic enterprise that illustrates no real regard for the human cost of its own self-perpetuation. The forces at the bank that are most heinous to Dave, Bill (the manager) and his son-in-law, Kyle, are monolithically evil. Bill is racist, angry, and domineering and Kyle is an adulterous, slimy young man who only seems to have risen as high as he has because he is the manager’s son-in-law. Writers Jay Leggett and Mitch Rouse (who also directed the film), have real issues with authority figures and their hypocrisy, as Sara’s father, who is a priest, menaces Dave following their dinner together (with an especially personal threat of wishing he could set the man, who has visible burned skin, on fire!). Employee Of The Month is dark, but cuts deepest at the forces of power and control in the world.

In fact, part of what makes Employee Of The Month such an instantly, viscerally pleasurable movie is how it pokes at the institutions of power and control, especially capitalism, and explores how rebellion is inevitable. In fact, the presiding theme in Employee Of The Month is “they had it coming.” This is, in part, why the film seems so odd in the abrupt left turn that it takes near its (almost) end. But, once the reversal, that begins with Dave walking out of knocking out his boss and into the bank lobby where there is a robbery in process, occurs, Rouse and Leggett set the film up for all of the reversals that follow. In other words, Employee Of The Month is shockingly, delightfully, unpredictable . . . until the moment it mortgages its linear narrative that is building up to the “will he or won’t he” of the alluded-to killing spree at the bank for a caper film that is almost formulaic in its reversals of fortune.

That does not make it any less pleasant, though.

Employee Of The Month stars Matt Dillon in another one of his heavy roles, where he plays what appears to be a stone-cold killer with a very human heart and motivation. More than any other role I have seen Dillon in, his performance as Dave seems chameleonic; for too many of the beats, he seems to be playing Jim Carrey as Dave. Again, it is not bad enough to make the film not worth watching, but there were moments where he telegraphs his character’s next move with his eyes and plays the character in a way that seems far more like Jim Carrey instead of Dave.

Steve Zahn is likable, dark, and articulate as Jack and this is another memorable sidekick role for the actor. Christina Applegate is decent as Sara and it is always good to see Paul Dooley and Dave Foley on film. Despite its abrupt turns into a very different style of movie, Employee Of The Month remains compelling, engaging and, ultimately, worth watching on all fronts.

For other, similar, satires, check out:
God Bless America
Office Space
Matchstick Men

8/10

For other movie reviews, please visit my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Thrill Is Absent For Anyone Who Has Seen The Previews: Armored Flops.

The Good: Decent premise
The Bad: Poor execution, Cliche character development, Actors are typecast (as opposed to used well).
The Basics: A pretty generic action-heist film, Armored is far too predictable and populated by too many characters the viewer doesn't care about to truly enjoy.


When my partner and I managed to get into the preview screening of Armored, back before it was released, I had a moment of inappropriate laughter. My wife, at the last minute, asked what I had gotten us into and when I told her Armored, she looked at me with a blank expression. I elaborated, "The one with the armored truck guards who arrange a heist" to which she responded, "Didn't we see that already?" At that point, I laughed (as the lights in the theater went down) and with good cause; with all of the movies, especially preview screenings, we saw that year we saw an inordinate number of previews for the film. In fact, the real drawback for us was that having seen the full theatrical trailer so many times, seeing the actual film offered up no real surprises as to what happens in the movie.

This movie could have been a tense, tight action adventure film, but unfortunately, Armored, like Quarantine (reviewed here!) the year before, revealed far too much to audiences in advance and the pathetic thing is, for those who see even the thirty-second trailer, the movie is pretty much ruined. The fundamental problem with Armored is that it is simplistic and the characters, acting and plot all reflect that. The movie is intended to be stylish and human (and as an anti-capitalist, I can certainly appreciate portions of the film's moral and mood), but it belabors itself and once things go wrong, the movie quickly degenerates into the most banal "guys night out" type film where reason, empathy and any sense of quality take a backseat to gunplay, car chases and explosions.

Ty is a hardworking guy who is struggling to make ends meet as an armored car guard. He takes care of his brother, but is in danger of losing the family house to the inflexible bank. Being an upstanding citizen, he attempts to get more hours at work, but finds that in the current economic climate, armored transports are a suffering business. As his probationary period comes to an end, Ty is mortified when his armored truck is hijacked . . . by his friends in an apparent prank.

The prank is more than just a bit of hijinx between the guys; it is a test run for robbing the armored car company of one of its shipments. Led by Cochrane, who initially seems compassionate to Ty's plight, six of the guards look to take a $42 million shipment and get away. Their plan goes off remarkably well, until the group is at their safe location after the actual heist when a cop walks in on them. Most of the group is content to let the officer die, but Ty takes compassion on him and fights to keep him alive. In standing up to his coworkers, Ty ends up in a battle for survival that threatens not only him and the dying officer, but his brother!

Armored is a very basic tale of desperate people dealing with desperate situations and how their best laid (bad) plans come unraveled. Unfortunately, it seems instantly familiar and not just from the previews. First, the plot seems remarkably contrived so none of the reversals actually resonate as truly unique or impressive. Ty is an average guy who is trying to work within the system to survive only to discover just how hard times are. But when he is let in on the planned robbery, his moral core wavers in a predictable way that does not "read" right. Ty goes along with the robbery more because the plot demands it than it is in his character.

Then the movie hinges on reversals and after the initial "scare" with Ty before his probationary period is up, the movie throws the surprises at the viewer in much the same way. There are quick reversals, but because the heist goes off so easily (and so relatively early in the film) the viewer knows there has to be complications. Armored was never going to be a film where a man bemoans losing his house, robs an armored car and then simply goes and pays his bills with the stolen money. So, when the police officer walks in on the celebrating criminals, it is not surprising that he gets shot. Ty barricading himself in with the officer is also unsurprising and the conflict that follows is hard to care about.

Part of the reason for that is that the characters make little sense. Most of the characters are "types" as opposed to individuals. Ty is the poor black man trying to work his way up and protect his family who is just overrun with debts from the inflexible bank. His character is the most problematic because it is so contradictory. He doesn't turn in his coworkers (which would have given him all the hours he wanted) when they let him in on their plan, going with the plan instead. So, he's morally ambiguous. But no, he's not morally ambiguous, because he works so hard to protect the officer and his family. It never seems to cross his mind seriously that with his cut of the money he can pay all his bills, let the cop die and still have enough money to soothe his conscience.

The rest of the characters are even more bland and monolithic, which speaks poorly to the writing of screenwriter James V. Simpson. Baines is a mentor figure with a great technical mind, Quinn is an expert on the wetworks and Cochrane is pretty much a generic villain (though he is a bit more Faustian than obvious in some parts) through most of the movie. There's the wisecracking member of the bunch and as a result, the film is populated by less distinct players than it is by "action-adventure standards."

This becomes even more disappointing when one considers the casting. Prestigious actors and newer performers are given equally mediocre parts to play, but largely Armored is hampered by the way it seems to want good casting to equate to good acting. So, while the presence of Laurence Fishburne (as Baines) and Jean Reno (as Quinn) lends some apparent weight and class to the movie, the performances are well within their expected ranges of greatness. In other words, they give viewers nothing new. This is a pretty common problem with films these days and in Armored it is nowhere more egregious than its use of Matt Dillon. Dillon made it big - for me as someone who never saw the movies of the so-called "Brat Pack" - with his performance of a racist L.A.P.D. officer in Crash (reviewed here!) and he was absolutely phenomenal in the role. Director Nimrod Antal uses Dillon the exact same way, having him deliver lines with a tightlipped sense of seething anger that never makes him seem truly deep . . . or unfamiliar.

But most of the movie hinges on the performance of Columbus Short as Ty. Short play the role as deftly as the script allows, with him convincingly looking beaten down with his body language when he converses with representatives from the bank and conversely strong and proud when taking on the villains. Short has decent emotional range, though the movie eventually degenerates into him yelling, running and looking freaked out. By that point, though, the viewer is unlikely to care about either the quality of his performance or the fate of his character.

I was bored by most of Armored and I was unsurprised when others at the preview screening actually walked out. A couple seated in front of my wife and I had seemed very excited coming into the movie, but they left after the first hour. Perhaps they felt like I did; there was nothing truly new here and it was hard to care about any of the characters, despite all the fastmoving people and cars.

For other works with Laurence Fishburne, check out my reviews of:
Contagion
Predators
Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer
The Matrix Revolutions
The Matrix Reloaded
The Matrix

4/10

For other movie reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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Spark Of Charm Overwhelmed By Dumb Jokes, Old Dogs Is The Disappointment You've Heard It Is!

The Good: One or two moments I smiled at.
The Bad: Utterly misuses the talents of Robin Williams, Largely unfunny, Predictable character arc, Underdeveloped characters.
The Basics: Old Dogs is a terrible movie that is not funny and not worth seeing free for anyone, much less fans of Robin Williams or John Travolta.


Lately, it seems like I have been rediscovering a love for the works of Robin Williams. My wife sat me down recently and we watched Bicentennial Man (reviewed here!) and I was blown away. The same cannot be said for Old Dogs, at least, not in a positive fashion. Old Dogs is a Robin Williams and John Travolta vehicle that comes to so many abrupt stops that one has to wonder why Disney even bothered making it. It is hard to even recall what was supposed to be funny in this movie. For those who have seen the preview trailer, all of the best jokes are in the trailer and, unfortunately, the movie that connects those random jokes is not much of a film.

Old Dogs is a formula buddy piece that has two characters who are such unlikely friends that the only place the friendship works is in the contrived mind of the two writers who made this film. Director Walt Becker is trapped with a lame script to try to make something of and while he does one or two visually interesting things, the film does not hold up in any cohesive way. What isn't cliche in Old Dogs is just not funny, making for a particularly troublesome ninety minutes.

Charlie and Dan are best friends who run a sports marketing firm. They are working to close an international deal which will launch them from superstar sports personalities into something even larger. Charlie has a tendency to embarrass Dan with personal stories to break the ice while meeting with the Japanese businessmen, but Dan keeps it together and has a sense of professionalism which makes him able to relate to the Japanese investors and close the deal. But there is a codicil; the businessmen want a representative to come to Tokyo to liaise. The men send Craig. At the same time, Vicki, Dan's lost love comes back into his life, with two children who are his from their one-night stand seven years prior.

As Vicki goes through a brief stint in prison, Dan tries to get to know Zack and Emily, his children. Because he lives in a "no children" apartment complex, Dan has to move in with Charlie. After kidproofing Charlie's house, Craig goes AWOL in Tokyo and the men have to scramble to try to save the deal. Unfortunately, the deal is hampered by Dan's desire to do things with his children and pill swaps that leave the men in ridiculous positions.

Old Dogs is hard to talk about, in terms of plot, more than that because there truly isn't much more to the film. The pill swapping is a pretty big part of the movie and outside that, it's largely Dan spending time with his children and realizing that he can't be everything to Zach and Emily AND work the business. But the pill swapping seems like a pretty generic comedic conceit these days, like reading all of the side effects to a medicine (which happens in the film) can be done ironically. The problem is, that large chunk of the movie - which results in many groins getting hit with golf balls - doesn't add anything to the rest of the flick and the net result is that there are long chunks of the movie which are either faux-sentimental father-child moments or ridiculous jokes that could be put into virtually any other movie.

On the character front, Old Dogs is an absolute flop because the characters aren't interesting or well-defined in any way. Charlie is supposed to be a lady's man, but he is utterly un-charming and, as played by John Travolta, has utterly no on-screen chemistry with the translator he keeps hitting on, Amanda (played by Lori Loughlin). Dan is supposed to be an uptight guy who never does anything shocking, save his abrupt marriage and annulment with Vicki four years prior, but he has a lot of mannerisms which are more quirky and do not lend themselves to the cold, efficient character he is supposed to have. Moreover, how Charlie got to the successful place he did is completely a mystery. In other words, Old Dogs seems thrown together without any sense of reason, rationality, or attempt to create a viable world for the viewer.

The real disappointment beyond all that, other than me having to write about it, is that neither Robin Williams and John Travolta are working at the top of their game. They are not very funny and Williams' humor amounts to little more than talking fast and screwing up his face occasionally. This is more than Travolta has. He's homogeneously unfunny with no tool for humor that passes itself as recognizable. Seth Green has a little fun, but is not enough even to carry his few scenes.

Old Dogs is a big failure for Disney and the only larger comment I can make on it is this: for years Terry Gilliam has been shopping around a feature film that would star Robin Williams and Johnny Depp. He's consistently gotten the money he needs overseas for the film, but he cannot get the twenty million dollars to make the movie. That stymied me. How can a movie with Williams and Depp not raise $20 million dollars?! Old Dogs is the best argument against throwing money at any project with Williams. And it pains me to write that.

For other Disney live-action works, please check out my reviews of:
Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
Tron: Legacy
Oceans
Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time
Alice In Wonderland
G-Force
Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End
Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe
Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl
The Princess Diaries
Tron


.5/10

For other movie reviews, check out my index page by clicking here!

© 2011 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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When Perfection Is Neither Enjoyable Nor Entertaining: Crash Wonderfully Explores Difficult Issues.

The Good: Excellent acting, Great characters, Direction - Ability to evoke mood, Thematic unity without simplicity
The Bad: Minor pacing issues (very much not an issue after multiple viewings!)
The Basics: In a difficult film that forthrightly explores interethnic relations in Los Angeles, a variety of characters relate or disjoint based on prejudice or tolerance.


When I was in college, I was not into sports so I derived great joy and a little profit from betting on award shows. Ever since then, I have picked my winners each year for the major award shows and kept score. I have a ridiculously high average for correctness when my average is factored using my "who ought to win/who will win" ratio. There were a string of years for the Oscars when the "Best Picture" category was unredeemably bad (a stretch following American Beauty to when Return of the King won) and I was frequently disappointed by either the nominees or the winners. A few years back, I bet (no longer literally) on Crash for Best Picture over Brokeback Mountain based on nothing more than the cast list and the movie poster. When I finally watched Crash, (I had been holding out to watch the Director's Cut for my first viewing, but I finally broke down and watched the theatrical release) I was pleased to see a movie that legitimately deserved the Best Picture award.

Detective Graham Waters is having a terrible yesterday. Flashing back to yesterday from his arrival at a crime scene tonight, Waters walks through a day that is filled with political pressure, intrigue and altercations all based on ethnic differences. After making a crack at his Latina partner, discovering his mother on crack and his brother missing, Waters is pressured by the Internal Affairs Department and the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office to put away a white cop who shot and killed a black police officer.

In the same proximate area, the D.A. and his wife are carjacked by two young black hoods, who then accidentally run over a Chinese man, a record executive and his wife are pulled over while driving by a racist cop and his progressive partner, and a hispanic locksmith runs into a Persian store owner whose shop is ransacked and covered in hate speech. Over the course of two days, a collection of complex events collide various characters in circumstances that are ethnically motivated, challenged or utterly out of control.

Crash is the best, most difficult movie I have ever watched that I would like to add to my personal library. Unlike something like The House of Sand and Fog that is unrelentingly depressing and terrible to watch, Crash challenges the viewer. Yes, there is a thematical unity in Crash; EVERYTHING in this movie comes back to ethnicity. Every action and reaction in the film is motivated by a conscious awareness of differences in ethnicity and/or skin color.

But unlike many movies where there is thematic unity, Crash works because it refuses to simplify the problems, conflicts or characters. So, for example, Anthony goes on a tirade about how as a young black man in a very white neighborhood he ought to feel insecure and berates a white woman for getting nervous upon seeing him there, then he whips out a gun and steals her SUV. So, while everything is about ethnicity here, the movie both challenges and embodies some of the worst stereotypes and fears about ethnic differences, sometimes even within a single character.

Writer/director Paul Haggis makes it work and he does so by creating characters who are multifaceted. So, for example, racist Officer John Ryan would be an easy "type." He's a racist white cop in the LAPD. Talk about a stereotype. Haggis fleshes him out, though. Ryan's father is aging poorly and might have a serious illness that his HMO will not cover and in trying to relate to the workers at the HMO, who are people of color, he relates that his father was progressive, hiring minorities before it was required by law and he lost everything when the city changed the way it awarded contracts. Ryan wrongly blames people of color, but Haggis rightly makes the ethnic prejudice less monolithic.

And this is a drama in the highest sense of the word. Officer Hansen, for example, who offers the film some catharsis by rejecting the methods (and person) of Officer Ryan becomes something of a tragic figure when he tries to live up to his ideals. On the flip side, Jean comes to realize that her fear and hatred are irrational and Anthony's ideology puts him at odds with Cameron in a way that forces him to compromise.

This is a clever film, but it is not easy to watch. Not by a long shot. Early on in the movie, after being primed with a bit of speech that indicates this is a film that is going to deal a lot with ethnic issues, there is a grueling scene between Officer Ryan and Karen that is so difficult to watch it will make the viewer's stomach clench and ill. The movie is somewhat unrelenting, though there does come some catharsis. Though, even those are not simple.

Like Magnolia, there are a slew of characters who fade in and out of the movie, intersecting and crashing with one another. Most of them are given enough screentime for us to care about them and the picture works well for a film that has approximately twenty principle characters stuffed into 113 minutes.

And the acting is great. There is not a single character that is not believable portrayed. The top named stars like Sandra Bullock and Brendan Fraser are relegated to roles that do not dominate the story or the screentime, leaving lesser-known actors to shine. Jennifer Esposito gives a great supporting performance that almost instantly defines the tone of the movie. Terrence Howard portrays Cameron with a dignity that is perfect for his character.

Ryan Phillippe is great as Hansen adding subtlety with body language and eye movement in a role that could have easily devolved into a "type" as opposed to a character. Phillippe's facial expression following his ultimate character action is almost worth the price of admission to the film.

Matt Dillon is perfect as John Ryan. Dillon is creepy when appropriate, cold and mean when he is most brutal and strikes an amazing balance with humanity when forced to. Dillon wisely does not play any anger or frustration in scenes where Ryan is charged with aiding his ill father. And Dillon is utterly convincing in his portrayal of Ryan when resolving his conflict with Christine.

Chris Bridges, best known to the world as the rapper Ludacris is nothing short of amazing as Anthony. He is dynamic, articulate and delivers his lines perfectly. More than that, he embodies a character that is both educated and streetwise, carrying himself with a body language of a student and a thug alternately. Bridges has a flexibility that makes the viewer believe in the dynamics of his character.

But it is Don Cheadle who moves Crash. With the most screentime, Cheadle bears the brunt of the acting work as his character is the most consistent thread in this tapestry. Cheadle gives a performance that is consistent in the mellow tone his character portrays while encountering ingratitude, intrigue, relationship dysfunctions and problematic ethnic relations. Cheadle is emotive and believable and he is a pleasure to watch here.

Crash is a great drama that is a must-see, but it's hard to say who would enjoy watching it. It's not an enjoyable or entertaining film to watch. But it is important. It's important to watch and it's important to talk about afterward.

As a winner of the Best Picture Oscar, this film is part of W.L.'s Best Picture Project, which is available by clicking here! Please check it out!

For other movies with an emphasis on social conflict, please check out my reviews of:
Strawberry And Chocolate
Memoirs Of A Geisha
Easy A

10/10

For other film reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2010, 2009, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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