GET A JOB
Lionsgate Premiere/CBS Films
Reviewed by: Harvey Karten, Shockya
Grade: C
Director: Dylan Kidd
Written by: Kyle Pennekamp, Scott Turpel
Cast: Miles Teller, Anna Kendrick, Bryan Cranston, Alison Brie, Marcia Gay Harden, Ravi Patel
Screened at: Review 1, NYC, 3/14/16
Opens: March 25, 2016
President Obama takes credit in driving unemployment down from over 9% a year ago to the present 4.9%, but statistics like that have little effect on the folks in “Get a Job.” Directed by Dylan Kidd, whose first feature “Roger Dodger” was a much better character study of an arrogant man, his new movie focuses on today’s job crisis, attempting to make light of serious problems in the present economy.
“Get a Job” features Miles Teller as Will Davis, a recent college graduate who appears to have majored in video communications. Will is looking for a job and so are his dad Roger Davis (Bryan Cranston) and girlfriend, Jillian Stewart (Anna Kendrick). One can only wonder why Cranston, who turned in arguably the best acting role in 2015 as Trumbo, would accept his presence in this silly, ineffective comedy. And for that matter, why would Miles Teller, who starred in the wonderful “Whiplash” as a drummer being “played” by a band leader, feel comfortable performing as a clueless job hunter, particularly since in real life he is thirty years old trying to impersonate a recent college graduate?
This “comedy” drones on, neither sufficiently over-the-top as would a Judd Apatow offering nor clever enough to appeal to any but the lowest common denominator. Will applies to a company dressed like a guy out to play softball on a Sunday and wonders why he is shown the door by Lawrence Wilheimer (Bruce Davison), the owner of a communications corporation. He takes a phone call from his girlfriend in the middle of the interview. Ho ho. Meanwhile his father, on whom he depended for money, loses his own job, hanging out in a Starbucks-type place to cover up his lack of employment. As a guy who should know better, Roger should be aware of better ways to contact a potential employer whom he calls “the decision-maker,” than to provoke the attention of several security guards outside the building.
Marcia Gay Harden as an executive for the Wilheimer corporation, acts like a matron with the proverbial stick in her butt except when she has sex with her boss in a chair—likewise unamusing, “Get a Job” depends on occasional, listless punch lines and actors who treat the job hunt as a hobby. If swallowing a jar of “deer cum,” which one of Will’s friends has to do to be promoted from a gofer to a desk job, strikes you as amusing, by all means: see the movie.
Rated R. 83 minutes. © Harvey Karten, Member, New York Film Critics Online
Story – C-
Acting – C
Technical – C+
Overall – C
