Employee of the Month - 2004

I'm trying to imagine the conversation Mitch Rouse writer/director of Employee of the Month about a year or so before they started shooting the film.

Mitch Rouse: Dude man, I've got a sweet script I'm working on; it's going to be awesome.

Mitch's Friend: Really? Cool, what's it about.

MR: Dude, I can't really say, but it's like a dark comedy, with like some relationship stuff, and with like kind of a crime element to it-wait, stop, I said too much, too much man, I can't, you know, go there.

F: Ok, well, cool, can I read it?

MR: No way man, dude, the twist at the end, man you'll never see it coming, it's fucking tight dude!

F: There's a twist at the end.

MR: I've said too much, too much, dude, I told you man, I can't go there, but it's tight dude, tight.

Herein lies the fundamental problem of Employee of the Month. It's just a bit too clever for its own good. It is a good mishmash of dark comedy, crime drama, etc. just like about a hundred other clever independent films that have come out in the past 15 years or so, but it's just a little too filmmaker-really-thinking-he's-got-us-here with multiple twists and characters switching back and forth in importance and between good and bad.

Matt Dillon plays a guy who works in a bank, Christina Applegate plays his fiancˇe, Steve Zahn plays his crazy friend, and David Foley plays the dentist, a seemingly extraneous character· or is he??!?!?!?!?>>>>>lololllllllerskates.

The movie starts with Matt Dillon on the bus rambling on and on about some sort of philosophical nature of humanity thing, and then the movie jumps around from there, from character to character and in and out of different time frames as movies of this sort are always wont to do. Turns out our hero(antihero?) lost his job and his fiancˇe found out that he has been getting some action on the side with her best friend, and then a bunch of other stuff happens, and then we get our multiple layered twists at the end.

Even though I'm very obviously making fun of the movie, its not all that bad. For a straight to video independent, it's pretty well shot, the actors aren't too bad, and there are some good gags in there, but yeah, it's just a little too over the top and really unravels into an eye-roll inducing ending. I know that it sort of lacks substance to say that something, you know·lacks substance, but that phrase really does apply here. The whole movie tries so hard to be something, that it sort of forgets what its trying to be, if that's vague enough for you.

Matt Dillon: David Walsh
Steve Zahn: Jack
Christina Applegate: ara Goodwin
Andrea Bendewald: Wendy
Dave Foley: Eric
Jay Leggett: Dorff

Written By: Mitch Rouse & Jay Leggett

Directed by: Mitch Rouse