Movie Review: Employee of the Month

Employee of the Month (2006) 

Directed by Greg Coolidge

Written by Don Calame, Chris Conroy 

Starring Dane Cook, Jessica Simpson, Dax Shepard, Andy Dick, Harland Williams

Release Date October 6th, 2006 

Published October 5th, 2006

Dane Cook is a comedian whose energetic style often masks some pretty mundane material. That may be why he was cast in the comedy Employee of the Month. The humor of Employee, written by Don Calame and Chris Conway and directed by Greg Coolidge, is lethargic to the point of non-existence. It needs a charismatic comic presence to make it even moderately humorous.

Unfortunately Cook delivers a performance as lazy as the comic material in the film and thus Employee of the Month is a tedious moviegoing experience.

In Employee of the Month Dane Cook stars as Zach a ten year member of the Super Value family. Ten years he has worked there without ever advancing beyond the role of box boy. Meanwhile, his arch-nemesis Vince (Dax Shepard) is in line to become assistant manager someday. Vince is a superstar cashier whose speed with a pricing gun has earned him Employee of the Month 17 months in a row, not to mention lines of cashier groupies.

The feud between Zack and Vince comes to a head when a new cashier joins the team. Her name is Amy (Jessica Simpson) and the rumor mill has it that she only dates the employee of the month. Now; slacker Zack, who has only existed to this point to be unnoticed, must become a model employee if he is to defeat Vince for employee of the month and win the affections of the smoking hot Amy.

That is the basic gist of Employee of the Month a factory produced comedy from Lionsgate meant to take advantage of the rising starpower of comedian Dane Cook. Unfortunately for Lionsgate, the film they made does nothing to take advantage of Cook's style. Dane Cook is a comic whose energy often masks material that is kind of weak. Cook is a relationship comic who uses clever twist of phrase and his lanky physicality to sell material that is kind of funny but not exactly brilliant.

The material of Employee of the Month fits Cook's style but the performance coaxed from the comic by director Greg Coolidge is lazy, something that Cook doesn't do well. Cook can pull off slacker but lazy he is not. His stage shows are marathons of energy and charisma and because he is not a very good actor; sticking closely to what Cook does well would have been better than trying to shoehorn him into this character.

There is one funny thing about Employee of the Month but, unfortunately, I don't believe it was intended to be funny. Jessica Simpson earns all of the biggest laughs in the film but not because she can deliver a terrific punchline. Simpson, more often than not, is the punchline. With  her plunging neckline arriving in many scenes well before she does, Simpson is like a dimmer version of Pamela Anderson; who at least has the awareness to know why people are staring at her.

Simpson's every line delivered with a slight girlish giggle as if every word were a new kind of embarrassment. This is a performance of spectacular awfulness, the kind of performance the Razzies were created to honor, point and laugh at. On the bright side, at least Simpson gives us something to laugh at in this otherwise humor free comedy.

Dane Cook could become a big time movie star with the right material. While I don't believe he is that great a comic, he is charismatic and clever. Women seem to find him attractive, they make up a large part of his mostly college based following. He has all of the basic elements of stardom and only needs the right vehicle to break out of the pack.

Employee of the Month is bad material combined with a director who doesn't quite understand how to get the right performances from his actors. Cook needed more energy and Simpson needed to not be cast at all. Then, maybe, Employee of the Month might not be the complete waste of film stock that it is.