Susan Granger’s review of ‘Employee of the Month” (Lionsgate)
At a New Mexico-based branch of the Super Club discount megastore, there’s an underground battle for the “Employee of the Month” title which cocky, arrogant checkout clerk Vince Downey (Dax Shepard) has won 17 times in a row. Longtime box-boy Zack (Dane Cook) has heard rumors that the sexy new checkout clerk Amy (Jessica Simpson) will sleep with any guy who wins the award, which impels the perennial slacker’s sudden zeal for excellence.
Groundlings alum Dick Shepard and stand-up comedian Dane Cook draw on their skill and timing to elevate the marginal material, but pop singer/reality TV star Jessica Simpson (“The Dukes of Hazzard”) has yet to master the cinematic art of ignoring the camera, often staring right into it – with a vacuous expression – as if she were inadvertently caught on Alan Funt’s “Candid Camera.” Oops!
First-time feature film director Glen Coolidge – who wrote the screenplay with Dan Calame & Chris Conroy – exaggerates beyond credibility, including far too many moronic pratfalls and jokes about bodily functions. Plus, the story would pack far more of a punch if the outcome weren’t so predictable. There is one incongruous “in” joke revolving around the store manager named Glen Gary ((Tim Bagley) and his brother Glen Ross (Danny Woodburn), evoking Daivd Mamet’s play “Glengarry Glen Ross.”
Costumer Denise Wingate squeezes buxom Simpson’s ample assets into low-cut tops that seem more appropriate for ogling at Hooters, and the fact that filming too place at a Costco in Albuquerque is barely disguised, considering the Kirkland house brand remains on the shelves. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Employee of the Month” is a relentlessly idiotic 3, mildly amusing only the most undemanding moviegoer.
