A hilarious comedy about frustrated waiters, stingy tippers and dicey food, Lions Gate Films' WAITING... stars Ryan Reynolds, Anna Faris and Justin Long as young employees battling boredom at Shenanigan's, a generic chain restaurant. A waiter for four years since high school, Dean (Justin Long) has never questioned his job at Shenanigan's. But when he learns that Chett, a high school classmate, now has a lucrative career in electrical engineering, he's thrown into turmoil about his dead-end life. Dean's friend Monty (Ryan Reynolds) is in exactly the same boat, but he couldn't care less. More concerned with partying and getting laid, Monty is put in charge of training Mitch (John Francis Daley), a shy new employee. Over the course of one chaotic shift, Mitch gets to know the rest of Shenanigan's quirky staff: Monty's tough-talking ex-girlfriend, Serena (Anna Faris), Shenanigan's over-zealous manager, Dan (David Koechner), and head cook Raddimus (Luis Guzman), who's obsessed with a senseless staff-wide competition known only as "The Game"... Featuring crazy busboys, unsanitary kitchen antics, and lots of talk about sex, WAITING... is a hysterical, behind-the-scenes look at the restaurant industry, and an affectionate ode to those lost, and thoroughly unproductive, days of youth.
The bitter, vengeful world of waiting tables gets the Clerks treatment in Waiting.... A new employee (John Francis Daley, Freaks and Geeks) gets trained at Shenanigan's, a banal theme restaurant where the bored employees play a game of flaunting their genitals. The staff includes a snarky waiter (Ryan Reynolds, Van Wilder, The Amityville Horror) who lusts after the underage hostess; a waiter suffering from crippling pee-shyness (Robert Patrick Benedict, Threshold); an oracular dishwasher (Chi McBride, Roll Bounce); and a conflicted waiter named Dean (Justin Long, Dodgeball), who's just been offered a promotion to assistant manager--a job that offers more money, but threatens to trap him at Shenanigan's for the rest of his life. Waiting... is a loose shamble of a movie--the only thing resembling a story is Dean's life crisis--but that's part of its charm. It's a tricky thing to depict tedium without being tedious, but Waiting... pulls it off; some jokes smack of forced sitcom writing, but most of the humor feels genuine, as if it came from writer/director Rob McKittrick's personal experience. A future cult film. Also featuring Anna Faris (Lost in Translation), Luis Guzman (The Limey), and rabidly adored stand-up comic Dane Cook as..a cook. --Bret Fetzer
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 / 5.0
Entertaining enough.:
This film is entertaining enough as a popcorn movie. The plot and story are basic and the comedy is crude and obvious. It is funny for what it is but certainly not one of Ryan Reynolds best.
Worth the "Wait":
I originally caught bits and pieces of this on Comedy Central a few months back. Because I wasn't watching it straight, it was hard to follow but what I had seen was funny. So I saw it on here for really cheap and was using up some credit so I decided to buy it. I have to say that once you get into the story it's even funnier. Some of the humor is a bit crude, some of it is gross, but you can easily identify with the characters that are played by some of today's most recognizable comic actors.more info
Waiting:
Funny movie with a new outlook to the restaurant business. Makes you think what really goes on in the back.
Needs more extras:
The blu-ray did not offer any more extras then the original. The movie is still great though.
