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Shenaniganz waiting staff have a hard enough life drudging for minimum wage and trying to live off tips, without a crabby boss and demanding customers to deal with. So to pass the time, they insult each other, add "secret ingredients" to the food of nasty customers and play "The Game". The ringleader is head waiter and general show-off Monty, who has a taste for jailbait. He's got his eye on hostess Natasha, who informs him "I'm only a minor for another week…"
If debut writer-director Rob McKittrick had been brought up in England, he would have spent a lot of time reading "Viz". I don't know what the US equivalent is, but there clearly is one. Either that or he's been watching "American Pie" and "Porky's" back to back for years. If you think knob gags and toilet humour are the height of hilarity, then this will very much be your cup of tea. Similarly if you've worked in the food services industry and experienced difficult customers then this will have you smirking with recognition. If however, you like there to be a story between your jokes and maybe a bit of depth to your characters, then you're going to be out of luck. McKittrick's movie is a series of bad taste gags stapled together without any regard for narrative or character development.
His directorial abilities are rapidly brought into question, as his timing is way off. He allows gags to go on too long, so they lose any impact and you're left wondering when the next one will come along. His editing is sloppy and he clearly sees his characters as a means to an end, using them as stooges to his lame
jokes. I suppose that explains his reliance on knob gags and full-frontal nudity to get cheap laughs. But if you're over the age of fifteen, you'll have heard them all before and be able to spot them a mile off. It's clear from the editing there are subplots and story lines that have been trimmed for the sake of brevity. That would explain why so many parts of the story peter out before getting anywhere.
The director leans too heavily on montages as a way of showing time passing and the kind of lifestyle the waiting McJob pays for. And there's always room for the odd flashback, with "flash" being the operative word. Essentially the film is an utterly inconsequential hour-and-a-half of smut and innuendo. The funniest bits occur during the end credits when most people will have switched off. But it's worth waiting to see Nick and T-Dog's dream rap video and exactly what the big gizmo on the restaurant wall does.
McKittrick's screenplay is hardly awash with wit and originality. All the ideas have been stolen from elsewhere, so the gross-out sub-genre has clearly run out of steam. It's difficult to empathise with any of the characters. In the main, they are a bunch of people who spend their time bitching about how awful their lives are, without ever doing anything to improve their situation. There are too many of them, so there isn't enough time to develop a character arc for most of them. The majority are either stereotypes (the wannabe gangsters, the tightly-wound waitress, the jobsworth boss) or one-joke wonders (the lesbian barmaid, the genital origami-obsessed cook, the man who can't go to the toilet if anyone else is nearby, the tail-chasing head waiter). The most sympathetic is Dean, who is so clearly a lifetime loser you don't so much feel empathy as pity for him. It's a shame there isn't more time spent on creating back-stories for the characters. Then maybe they'd feel more real and you might like them. As you might expect from a movie with so much bad taste humour in it, the language is a little off-colour. But the use of expletives doesn't make any of the jokes funnier. The multiple references to the nut-crushing variations on "The Game" are a touch too graphic and the set-ups are interminable. There are a couple of situations that are amusing, like Dean's visit to his mother, where they spend all their time insulting each other and the rookie waiter's final meltdown. But these moments are few and far between.
Ryan Reynolds is usually one of those frustratingly likeable actors, but as head waiter Monty, he's sailing very close to the wind. He spends most of his time being unbearably smug, playing the rambling mentor. However, the laconic delivery fits the character and he has the false sincerity of a tip-hunting waiter down pat. But he is veritably pervy and a little too into the teen skirt-chasing, which tips the scales against him.
Justin Long plays yet another lily-livered loser as Dean - a disappointed and disappointing son. Though he plays them well, it would be nice to see Long play something different. It's irritating to see him push the same performance in every movie. As sharp-tongued waitress Serena, Anna Faris is left with little to do. The script doesn't give her any purpose. Clearly there could be a lot more banter between her and Monty, but it doesn't happen. David Koechner gets the thin end of the wedge as Dan, the overbearing boss. He's an actor with prodigious comic talent that isn't utilised.
Dependable character actors Chi McBride and Luis Guzman do themselves a disservice by appearing in this kind of dross. Though Guzman may have fun as rat-faced ringleader Raddimus, it's hardly a stretch for him. McBride gives the laid-back Yoda-speak of kitchen prophet Bishop more weight than it deserves. The only actor to really stand out is Alanna Ubach as the tightly-wound, forever hunched, swearing streak of vitriol Naomi. She's the only person with both the right level of energy and commitment to make her role work.
The original music by Adam Gorgoni is anything but. It is massively annoying if only because it is omnipresent. We never get a break from the cheddary dance, noisy guitar rock or head-banging metal. The soundtrack takes itself too seriously and this puts it at odds with the rest of the film. The best example of this is the use of prolonged psychedelic-flavoured electric guitar riffs that hang on too long to be ironic. And don't even get me started on the button-pushing maudlin indie…
"Waiting" is the sort of tired old gross-out comedy that suffers from a serious lack of new ideas. It will appeal to those who've never seen the likes of "Porky's" or "National Lampoon's Animal House", but to those who have, this is a pale imitation that squanders a largely talented cast on a series of limp gags and tired situations. Still, it might make you think twice about sending food back to the kitchen…
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![Waiting [DVD] [2005]](http://picnicb.ciao.com/uk/78479113.jpg "Waiting [DVD] [2005]")
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