Demoted

This film is billed as a comedy, and it is a funny film. I didn't think it deserved some of the low ratings it has been given. There were many laugh-out-loud moments for me. I'd say, relax, watch this movie, and enjoy yourself.

I actually loved this movie because it was the rise of the secretaries. 2 sales men sexist towards women in the workplace gets demoted after their boss dies. Not only do the the salesmen see how they treated co-workers and women in the workforce but they empower their coworkers and become top dogs in the company. I loved it and gave it 10 stars. It was great to see Sean Astin in a different kind of role.

The direct to video effort Demoted brings one fantastic corporate office satire to mind and immediately suffers by comparison. That satire, of course, is Mike Judge's cult hit Office Space, a funny, poignant, and brutally honest look at inside the cubicle, observing three men fed up with their boss, their job, and every sickening event that happens day in and day out.

There are times when clearly Demoted wants to be that film. It wants to pack in relatable qualities found in the workplace, it wants to create characters that lie around your office, and it wants to make people you've seen before. The problem is that it is so textbook and underachieving in almost every field that it becomes less a relatable film and more of an envious portrayal of the life you wish was as convenient as your own.

Mike and Rodney (Sean Astin and Michael Vartan) are the office pranksters at their company, where they spend some time selling tires over the phone, but more time harassing fellow employees, mainly Ken Castro (David Cross). They have a notable relationship with the current boss, but after he dies in a night of boozing, strippers, and camaraderie, the head position is given foolishly to Castro (a name that will prove wholly fitting). He is dictative, boisterous, and sickeningly belligerent, and demotes Mike and Rodney to the secretary position - a position they sneered and mocked prior to this demotion.

Rodney is getting married and, after being put on the spotlight by her snotty father, tells her that he is getting a promotion and is a big shot at the office. It is truly inevitable this excuse will backfire, causing his marriage to subsequently go under, yet be miraculously saved in a foolish and contrived scene. It is too inevitable that Mike and Rodney will not have very much fun walking in someone else's shoes. I believe it was Atticus Finch from Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird that you can never totally understand someone until you climb in their shoes and walk around for a while. Their case doesn't seem so much like that as it seems an urgent alliance. They, then, witness all the disheartening budget cuts Castro is making and plot to stop him.

I enjoyed the first act of Demoted, stared blankly, chuckling occasionally during the second, and finally, snickered and yawned during the third. There are times when the film genuinely wants to incorporate intelligent satire and wit to its material, but it is stuck in a rut of clichés waste-deep. Astin is a fine choice for Mike, playing a simple and likable man, if a caricature, and Vartan does his best with the role of the everyman, desperately careening towards the idea of making his marriage work. But who is brought to a solid light here is David Cross's Castro, but even he feels cheated on the levels of destruction he could so helpfully bring to a comedy of errors.

And that's where Demoted flounders. Too many clichés, too many ridiculous setups, too many cheap-shots taken at decent people, too many instances that beg us to laugh, and too much suspension of disbelief that we haven't seen Office Space. Likable cast, efficiently determined script, but an execution that has direct-to-DVD rehash written all over it.

Starring: Sean Astin, Michael Vartan, and David Cross. Directed by: J.B. Rogers.

Truly bad comedies with horrid acting, bad scripts, faux humor or worse 100% toilet humor are all too common. Enter 'Demoted. Saw the trailer which out of the gate looked to be a funny tale of fish out of water as two top salesman at the Treadline Tire Co. are demoted, by their arch rival, to mere office secretaries.

Having verbally abused the secretarial staff for years our 'heroes' slowly, over time, give this movie 'heart' as they see how the 'other side' lives and works. For example, they were clueless to the fact that women are never promoted to the sales force. That as well as the issue of 'unions' and workers rights blend well as the two 'fish' learn the ways of the pond. The new evil 'boss' Ken Castro is played in awesome fashion by David Cross.

Humor meets 'heart' as our bumpkins are determined to teach a 300+ pound secretary to jog! The toilet/plumbing scene is hilarious. Yes, crude references abound but do not overshadow the mostly funny and heart felt script. Good acting all around. This is one madcap sales force you will enjoy meeting.

I don't like the genre, and I didn't expect to like this, and I was right. But since it's a bit unfair to give a bad rating just because you don't like the genre, I gave it an extra star. And TBH, it could've been worse. It was silly, but not as cringe-worthy as expected. It had several really good actors (and I don't get why they agreed to this), and I was happy to find out they didn't make them over-act (too much, anyway) as I would've expected from this genre.