Why so much hype?

Brilliant and touching

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Well, this movie was a near complete waste of time.Employee of the Month tells the story of David (Matt Dillon), a man who loses his job at a bank and his fiancée in the same day and heads back to work with a gun stuffed in his pants. And it's a comedy. Along the way we meet David's Bachelor friend Jack (Steve Zahn), one of those crazy guys who rants about everything. We also stop by a strip club for some gratuitous nudity, watch Jack steal jewelry and money off of dead accident victims, meet David and Jack's gay friend who's lost his dental license (Dave Foley), find out David is cheating on his fiancée Sarah (Christina Applegate) with her best friend Wendy (Andrea Bendewald), meet an extremely accommodating hooker (Jenna Fischer), watch a completely inexplicable dream sequence about David foiling a bank robbery, learn why David is badly burned on the left side of his body and suffer through a massively out-of-left-field twist ending that just goes on and on and on and on.Employee of the Month is an example of one of the great banes of the modern viewer. Production values on films are so high, they all look and sound so good, you've actually got to pay attention to them to realize how bad they are. But the more you focus on them, the worse they are to sit through. If you just sort of half pay attention to this movie, it might not seem so terrible and you might actually be caught off guard by the big twist at the end. But the more closely you watch it, the worse it gets.Firstly, Matt Dillon is horrible in this film. There's only one single moment in the entire story where he makes David seem like a remotely real person, and it comes way at the end while you're already being assaulted by the awesome WTF quality of the twist.Secondly, the writing isn't nearly as smart as it thinks it is. The story is all about making you think David is one sort of person, then literally telling you that he's just been pretending to be that person, then "shocking" you with the sort of person David actually is. But instead of making the character a puzzle the audience has to gradually figure out, the filmmakers just cheat. They simply throw new information about David into the story without building up to those revelations or connecting them to anything else. And the twist ending is one of those bad twists which doesn't make you look at everything you've seen in a different light. instead, it says "Hey! There was actually a bunch of stuff going on that you didn't see and it completely invalidates what you've just watched! Sure, it doesn't make any sense…but it's so clever!" There are a couple of good things in the film, namely the performances of Steve Zahn and Christina Applegate. Zahn gets to chew the scenery with gusto as Jack and Applegate manages to be the most believably human character in the entire story.Employee of the Month isn't just a bad film. It is one of those movies that when it's over, you will say out loud (even if no one else is around), "Why did I waste my time with this thing?" I had to stick it out to write this review. Trust me, you don't need to bother.

This movie was a very good effort. Matt Dillon plays David, the bank employee coming up on his two year review expecting a bonus and paid benefits but is fired instead. Things start really head south for him after that. He endures a day that continually gets worse from there culminating is a ten minute ending where there is surprise after surprise strung together.Steve Zahn as Jack is simply outstanding and Dave Foley delivers an underrated effort. In particular, the exchanges between these two are priceless.Jay Leggetts' character Dorff was both odd and hysterical and his interaction with Jack was very good.A special shout out to Jenna Fischer as the hooker Misty whose exchange with Matt Dillon in the hotel room still has me laughing. Otherwise, the efforts on the part of the female leads was lacking.All in all this movie is in my list of "drop everything" when it is on to watch. At the end of the day there are a couple subtleties that have me curious regarding David. He does a couple things in the movie that left me wondering if he was trying to do the right thing or mess with someone else?

Beyond that point, it's Wild Things.This is a fantastic flick with incredible acting on all fronts. . .for the first hour and 28 minutes. Beyond that, it's an all-out race to the bottom. From a tale of a man breaking down in the style of Falling Down - with an acting prowess nearly equal to that of Michael Douglas - it becomes a tale of who can screw who the most. Within the span of three minutes, these characters change themselves from tortured souls dealing with life's unfairness into caricatures of every gang-crime movie that had the bad sense to be put on film. Either the writer for the first ninety five percent of the film was fired, or suffered a psychotic breakdown. We placed this movie on our Netflix queue by mistake (meant to request the more recent Dane Cook flick - never you mind what that says about our cinematic tastes) and were pleasantly surprised. . .right up until the end.

Damn nice little surprise this one was! The little prologue sequence, with Matt Dillon's witty voice-over, lead me to believe that the movie indeed would have a sharp edge to it. Then the viewer gets transported to events that happened 36 hours earlier, and you start watching a mild comedy, easy-going with a touch of romance even. But after 15 minutes, Matt Dillon's character gets fired from his job as a bank manager, and things start going down-hill rapidly from there on for the poor dude.The movie just keeps on getting nuttier with every scene. Some of the humor is gross and rude (especially when it's coming from Dillon's dubious life-long buddy Jack, played by a pretty hilarious Steve Zahn), but it's in perfect balance with the sad and extremely funny events that happen to David (Matt Dillon's Character). Chistina Applegate is in it too, as David's girlfriend (I didn't even recognize her at first, even though she still looks beautiful as ever), and you should wait until you see what she comes up with, totally unexpected.Both the cinematography and editing are slick and modern-looking. Lots of nice little tricks in the editing department (speed-up sequences and sudden freeze-frames), but they are never too dominant and remain pleasant eye-candy (if you fancy those kind of techniques, which I do). It all adds up to a smooth look and a fast pace. In a movie like EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH, that dresses itself mildly hip, a good soundtrack is as equally important. And this movie delivers on that. A decent rock/electro soundtrack, and even better: Most of that music seems to be composed especially for this movie. So they didn't go and got some bands to be featured on the soundtrack, but most of this type of music on the soundtrack is instrumental, contemporary and suites the film well.Without spoiling anything, I might add that this movie will have quite some surprises in store for the viewer in the third act. Indeed, it all seems to lead up to that moment where David will snap and go nuts. As much as it is fun to anticipate on when that moment will be, I was very much surprised that there is more to it. Which left me with a satisfied feeling after I was finished watching this movie.This movie confirmed something I know already: I love Matt Dillon. I love witty, clever, fast-paced and good-looking indie-flicks. Hence, EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH is a winner!