Urban Thought Collective

THE PROMOTION ®

Biases:
None. Except it stars two pretty good second bananas.

Major Players:
Seann William Scott, John C. Reilly, Gil Bellows.

Logline:
Doug (Scott), a “shoo-in” for manager of a new Donaldson’s grocery store being built in Chicago, comes up against Canadian assistant manager interloper Richard (Reilly) for the position, with an unordinary battle of wills playing out across corporate and family backdrops as they backstab each other for the job.

The Deal:
Taking me back to my North Side, Jewel-Osco days, “The Promotion” is unusually silly-smart summer fare. Like the girl in the sixth grade whose 5′10″ with boobs, writer-director Steve Conrad’s “Promotion” sticks out for its relentlessly quirky style, whimsical score and voiceovers, along with pure mockery of site visit-and-company-retreat corporate culture. If you like “Arrested Development” or “The Office,” you’ll love this one.

Scott’s Doug is an understandably relatable middle-achiever; a career Donaldson’s man who’s willing to do anything to get this promotion so that he and his nurse wife (played by girl-next-door-sneaky-hot Jenna Fischer of…”The Office”) can move out of their paper mache-thin walled apartment where their gay next door neighbors are frequently heard “experimenting.”

Reilly’s “aw shucks,” happy-go-lucky demeanor as family man Richard is the kind of guy who listens to motivational tapes and gives new heft to the axiom “kill ‘em with kindness.” He’s also blithely savvy, too, turning the tables on a Doug sabotage attempt by playing the old dumb Canadian card. What’s great is that there’s no villain here, as both men are three-dimensional, have good intentions at heart, and are completely, comically fallible; they’re both sad and worthy in their own way.

Throw in a bunch of hoodlum teens (led by “The Wire’s” Randy Wagstaff (Maestro Harrell), Lili Taylor with a strange Scottish accent, Gil Bellow’s scary-serious arrogant Donaldson’s exec, a serial slap-fighter, and Jason Bateman continuing his Travolta-style career comeback, and you have a delightful, observationally humorous comedy chock full of random funny.

The only thing between this and the @@@@ “Napoleon Dynamite” pantheon of oddball humor is a lack of consistently laugh-out-loud moments. Nonetheless, bag it! “The Promotion” is a clean-up on Aisle Funny.

@@@ REELS
(THREE REELS)
It’s pretty hot - go give it a shot.

Edwardo Jackson is the author of the novels EVER AFTER and NEVA HAFTA, (Villard/Random House), a writer for The 213 Magazine, and an LA-based screenwriter. Visit his website at www.edwardojackson.com where his new novel I DO? is available NOW.