Punch. Punch. Punch. Punch. That's what I want to do to the guy who made this terrible movie. I'm not going to spend much time talking about this one, because writer/director Greg Coolidge obviously didn't spend much time putting it together. Bottom line, this movie isn't funny once. Not a chuckle, not a guffaw, not a smirk.
Mostly, I think what this thing was supposed to accomplish was to be the first starring vehicle for young up and comer Dane Cook. Abort mission! Abort mission! I've been hearing this guy's name since forever, but other than a glimpse here and there I really had no idea who he was coming in. Turns out he's about the biggest douche nozzle that side of the Mississip. From the minute he rolled into frame on a pair of those skate/shoe combos that are made for eight year olds I wanted to smack him across the face with a 2x4. Just the sound of his mongoloid voice puts me in an Incredible Hulk-like rage. I will go so far as to call this charismaless waste of space a worse choice for anchoring a movie than Jessica Simpson would have been. Really, in essence, he is the poor man's Ryan Reynolds; which makes him the homeless man's Jason Lee. And to top it all off, this film is so terribly constructed that you begin to hate his character and pull for the bad guy to win about halfway through.
Said bad guy is played by Ashton Kutcher's Dax Shephard (a pseudo name so embarrassing, I almost didn't want to type it). He gives the best performance in this film, and seems like the most capable actor of the main characters, but at no point is he funny. Never. Not even a little bit. Well, except this one time when he says something racist. But, even then I only intellectually recognized in my brain that open racism is so frowned upon that it's funny and had no actual physical reaction to the comedy.
Jessica Simpson is horrible. She's thankfully given nothing to do but look pretty, but still manages to seem like a dullard delivering her four lines. As far as the rest of the cast: Pedro plays Pedro. If that sounds good to you you'll probably enjoy his parts. Harland Williams plays an identityless character that I think is supposed to be funny because Harland Williams is ugly and talks stupid. Andy Dick plays a character who has thick glasses and can't see well, and that's seriously the entire basis of his character; and there's about one million Andy Dick can't see what's going on jokes throughout. Brian George plays a character that's supposed to be funny because he has a foreign accent. And last but not least, some dude named Tim Bagley plays the manager who is supposed to be funny because he is intimidated by his midget brother.
This movie fails on all levels. It looked like it was going to try and be a workplace spoof ala Office Space, but head scratchingly never even spoofs the warehouse store setting. It's really just a poorly constructed romantic comedy set in a warehouse store for no apparent reason. Why did they have to try and be employee of the month to sleep with Jessica Simpson? Why couldn't they have had a four square tournament? Why didn't she want to screw the best ice sculptor in town? Why couldn't they have been rival fly fishermen vying for the nubile young bait shop girl's affections? Any of these random and ludicrous scenarios would have been just as random and ludicrous as this terrible plot. Avoid it at all costs. This thing is like an hour and forty five minutes long too. They didn't even have the decency of making a substanceless comedy the standard hour and twenty minutes. You will hate yourself if you go see this movie.
