Steve Conrad’s (The Pursuit of Happyness) new comedy, The Promotion, about grocery store assistant managers vying for a promotion, is like the good sandwich you have eaten one too many times. Sure, you could certainly do better, but you still manage to find something tasty in the overall familiarity. The Promotion is not nearly funny enough from first bite to last crumb, but should you end up in the theater, the movie manages to stave off hunger until a heavier meal comes along.
The perpetually repressed Doug (Seann William Scott, Mr. Woodcock) is a “shoo-in” for a promotion at the grocery store, Donaldson’s. The increase in salary will allow him to pay for his new house, where he and his wife (Jenna Fischer, The Office) will not have to deal with their noisy, banjo-playing neighbors. Doug’s woes begin when he prematurely purchases the house in anticipation of the promotion.
Competition and conflict arrive in the form of Richard (John C. Reilly, Walk Hard), a Canadian import brimming with Ned Flanders-esque, Christian do-right value – or so it would seem. Both actors reveal the darker sides of their characters as they screw each other over to gain the coveted promotion.
Conrad is a talented writer with commercial appeal, but his writing isn’t quite funny enough to sustain a pure comedy. He gets his fair share of laughs but rarely achieves any of the gut-busting variety.
He also indulges in regurgitation. In the same way Conrad kept Will Smith busy chasing down bone-density scanners in Happyness, he takes Promotion’s one joke and runs it into the ground. It works the first four times you hear the awkward insertion of Richard’s full name into a self-help tape, but by the 17th time, it wears out its welcome.
Nevertheless, the script is structurally sound (not great, but solid), and the acting is similarly consistent. Scott gets by admirably as the by-the-book Doug (a departure from his regular forté, sex-obsessed characters like Stifler from American Pie), and although Reilly is incapable of giving a bad performance, the film doesn’t give him enough comic fodder to chew on.
The funniest (and most creative) characters are the supporting ones. There is a disgruntled customer (Chris Conrad, Life) who occasionally comes by to slap Doug over a Teddy Grahams dispute. A morbidly obese man (Mario Larraza, Valentina’s Tango) samples items in the store (deodorant, shaving cream, soda and even mouth wash) and returns them to the shelves. And Doug’s neighbors are gay banjo players whose blunt “erotic” conversations can be heard through Doug’s wall (“Let’s get down, sexually, while playing the banjo.”).
The cast is also filled with veteran comic actors in bit roles. Saturday Night Live’s Fred Armisen, Jason Bateman (Juno), Bobby Cannavale (The Take) and Rick Gonzalez (“Spanish” from Old School) all put in cameo appearances. However, most of these roles are sadly limited in comedic value.
The overall formula, wherein everything the protagonist attempts to try and get ahead ends up backfiring on him, has been done before. And while some of Conrad’s scenes are inspired (particularly a tap dance/fistfight between Doug and Richard), overall he does not manage to pack in enough laughs to make The Promotion a compelling film.
dan.benamor@gmail.com
RATING: 3 STARS OUT OF 5
