Entry Level

This is a very amusing but also worrying portrayal of 'unemployables' trying to get a job in America. I ordered the DVD out of curiosity because I have always liked D. B. Sweeney, whom I find most congenial. He does very well, low key, but solid, and he knows how to hold a lead role without affectations. The film is written and directed by Douglas Horn, who has successfully walked the tightrope of entertaining us and being humorous while at the same time honestly portraying the desperation of the chronically unemployed. That was not an easy thing to pull off. The main character, Sweeney, is a talented chef but refuses to work as one any longer, and finds himself unemployable because he has no other skills. The film shows the same gang of people going from job interview to job interview, always being told they are unsuitable. They all become great friends because they sit in the same succession of waiting rooms and joke about their shared dilemma. It's a good idea for a film, and it works very well.

Seeing this film at the Stony Brook Film Festival out on Long Island, the promise that filmmaker Douglas Horn showed with his short "Full Disclosure" is fulfilled with his first feature film.

Dryly funny, but not a workplace comedy like "Office Space" is...this looks more at the funny ennui that can happen when job seekers keep running into each other at job interviews. D.B. Sweeney and Missi Pyle start a friendship in those dull waiting rooms that leads into something more, but at the same time, great character turns by the other actors (like Kurtwood Smith) makes this an enjoyable ride. It also makes you hungry, as D.B. is a cook that is looking for something new to earn money at...but he can't stop making great sandwiches for everyone he meets.

Not bad. A likable comedy with likable characters. You don't have to look very hard and it does also have a message.....a nice kind of message. I don't know why IMDb requires 10 lines in a review, especially when films like this really don't require that much. So, that is my review - a film that doesn't need a lot of commentary. OK, a guy likes to cook, but his restaurant doesn't make enough money to survive....so he looks for a job...any entry level job in what he thinks is what society expects of him.....and in the process meets a lot of people who just happen to like him and the food he gets a kick out of making for them. So, that's about it and you can probably guess the rest.

It's a vicious cycle, that God has set that every once in ten years the economy will simply collapsed; companies fold, people released from their duties aka fired, unemployment rises. Vicious, really vicious.

So imagine yourself, all the while having a job, and not minding that maybe one day the job you're having will ceased. Then, out of the blue, you were kicked out the front door and being told not to bother to come back tomorrow.

And imagine that you do not have any 'other skills' to fall back upon. You do not possess a certificate, you do not that Excel is actually a proprietary software made by Microsoft and not a soft drink, and that all the work experience you have do not mean a thing to the job you are applying for.

Enter the people who have been working for their whole lives only to learn that they no longer have the job. So they went to job interviews only to be told that they do not have what it takes to be chosen as employees.

This is what the whole film is about. About a chef who loses his café. About a girl who found out that her times spent in Bangladesh worth nothing in the eyes of the interviewees, as of an engineer who found out that he is either too old or too young to fit into any jobs.

Overall, this film is okay, not in a laugh-out-loud way, but rather it takes a jab at the current economic situations happening throughout the world. People losing jobs and seeking desperately new jobs to have enough to pay for the bills and food to fill their stomachs.

I didn't rate this because I do not think any rating is justifiable as I do not want to be seen as recommending this film if I rate it a ten, and to rate it a one do not mean that thing film is not worth a watch.

The main surprise I had with this movie was the dialogue. Just excellent. Very clever exchanges between Clay and the homeless guy, between Clay and his new girlfriend, between Clay and the interviewers, between Clay and his fellow interviewees.

Yes, the movie teaches life lessons at several levels. This is definitely more than your standard easy listening feel good movie. I laughed quite a bit to the sarcastic dry underplayed humor. No pie in your face stuff here.

Now I have to go see what other movies the writer/director have been involved with. Not often that I do follow up like this.