Employee Of The Month (2006) Movie Information:

Employee Of The Month (2006) Directed by: Greg Coolidge Employee Of The Month (2006) Written by: Greg Coolidge Employee Of The Month (2006) Cast: Sean Whalen, Danny Woodburn, Marcello Thedford, Brian George, Andy Dick, Tim Bagley, Efren Ramirez, Dax Shephard, Jessica Simpson, Dane Cook, Harland Williams, Shirly Brener

Employee Of The Month (2006) U.S. Distributor: Lionsgate Employee Of The Month (2006) U.K. Distributor: Lionsgate

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Employee Of The Month (2006) Synopsis:

For customers of Super Club, the largest high-volume, bulk-discount retailer in the country, membership has its privileges. For workers at the cavernous store, the most coveted honor is the "Employee of the Month" award, and having one's photo immortalized on the wall of fame in the staff lounge. Enter Zack Bradley (Dane Cook) and Vince Downey (Dax Shepard), two ultra competitive Super Club workers whose ten years of employment have resulted in drastically different career paths. While Vince – with the aid of his trusty sidekick Jorge (Efren Ramirez) -- has advanced to become head cashier and winner of 17 consecutive "E of M" awards, Zack is the ultimate slacker whose scruffy appearance and laid back attitude has made him popular with his colleagues, but kept him stuck in the lowly ranks of the store's box boys. The duo's longtime rivalry comes to a bitter head when Amy (Jessica Simpson) – a beautiful new cashier with a reputation of only dating "Employee of the Month" winners – transfers to the store, immediately becoming the object of both Zack and Vince's affection and often comical gamesmanship. While Vince instantly impresses Amy with his crowd pleasing, flamboyant style behind his checkstand register, Zack's feeble attempts to charm his beautiful new co-worker quickly backfire against him. With the race to win Amy's affections slipping away, Zack determines his only chance rests in winning the store's next "Employee of the Month" award. A battle to the end, "Employee of the Month" shows that the only failure in life is when one fails to try.

Employee Of The Month (2006) Movie Review:

Blending goofy parody with a stupid plot, this is one of those comedies that keeps a smile on your face even though there are only a couple of actual laughs along the way.

Zack (Cook) is a slacker box boy at the mammoth Super Club discount store. He prefers to lay low with his pals (Dick's myopic eye-examiner, Williams' slaphead heavy lifter, George's electronics guru), rather than compete for the Employee of the Month title against star cashier Vince (Shepard). Then new cashier Amy (Simpson) appears, inspiring Zack to prevent Vince from winning a record-breaking 18th title. But will Zack have to leave his loser buddies behind to become the model employee?

Like a Todd Phillips movie (see Old School), this film has a ludicrously lazy script that expects us to laugh at silly antics whether or not they're genuinely funny. The characters are almost pathologically likeable, except of course the villains, who are relentlessly reprehensible. There's no shading to any of them; this is moviemaking for idiots. Although it's at least 20 minutes too long for its core audience's attention spans.

It's also the kind of undemanding movie you're probably looking for on a Friday night after a stressful week at work. There's enough clever satire in here to keep us alert, including lots of gags about the jumbo quantities you have to buy in these warehouse superstores, and even a blink-and-miss-it jab at American gun culture. The internal politics are played to the hilt, like a pathetically simplistic episode of The Office. But it's astute enough to keep us happy.

And the characters are just as easy on the eyes Most of these people are outlandishly cartoonish, and each has a collection of running gags to keep the whole thing rolling along merrily. Cook and, strangely enough, Simpson deliver the only natural performances in the film, creating believable characters we can almost identify with, and embarking on a by-the-books, PG-style rom-com courtship. Throw in plenty of fart jokes and you've got an engagingly bad movie that pretends to be rude and crude. But isn't, really.

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Employee Of The Month (2006) review written by: Rich Cline