The Promotion feels like the crossroads where mainstream comedy meets indie comedy and the result is a bit all over the place. Some of the jokes in The Promotion (IE: "black apples" and the foreigner who gets violent over a box of Teddy Grahams) seem geared more for mainstream comedy films, while the observations the film makes about male masculinity along with the nine-to-five hell of the workplace make the film a more low-key comedy with abrupt situational humor.A strange hybrid this is, placing two talented actors at its core - the inherently likable Seann William Scott and the exuberant character actor John C. Reilly. Scott plays Doug Stauber, the assistant manager at Donaldson's, a supermarket chain based in Chicago. Day in and day out, Doug has to deal with poor and often abhorrent cards left in the parking lot dropbox for shoppers to state their shopping experience, a gang of loitering black teenagers in the parking lot, and just the drudgery of working for a little bit above minimum wage.Doug feels this is about to change, as he presumes he's a dead lock for the manager position at a new Donaldson's, which is opening very soon. Yet, there's another man eyeing the position, as well, named Richard Wehlner (John C. Reilly), an unusually nice man who has just moved from Quebec with a squeaky-clean record that just may grant him the desired position. For now, though, he works alongside Doug as assistant manager at the current Donaldson's.Just from that premise alone, I got anxious with The Promotion. I love films set in supermarkets, big-box stores, malls, or some other consumption-driven place. They often allow for humor more observant on human behavior to take place rather than your usual band of gags and can usually be levied by the thrills and unexpected happenings of a common setting. I was also hoping that The Promotion would rely quite a bit on humor driven by Donaldson's eclectic bunch of customers, similar to Kevin Smith's Clerks, a film I wouldn't hesitate to call one of my favorite comedy films.The Promotion doesn't get too heavy with the blatant or observant comedy, however, and instead tries to provide a face and maybe some relatable instances to the dead-end job of a grocery store. The issue is that The Promotion doesn't have a real identity here. Sometimes it wants to be satirical (when it's showing Doug do all the jobs at the store), sometimes it desires to be observant (when Doug is reading the customer feedback cards), sometimes it wants to be flat-out hilarious and fish for laughs (returning to the "black apples" example along with the team-building activities the employees at Donaldson's take part in), and, at others, it wants to show the male mindset of wanting to advance and strive higher in the workplace (Doug's mentality throughout).With all this on its mind, and a mere eighty-one minute runtime, The Promotion doesn't get a lot of this accomplished but shows us this is what it wants to do in the long run. What I can admire, however, is that everything it wants to do is fairly interesting and that the film itself finds ways to take dryer subjects and ideas and make them funny or at least watchable. The blatant comedy actually works more often than not, and the ideas it throws in about male masculinity and striving for the top position work, even if they're only given a surface explanation and depiction in the film.Scott and Reilly also nicely and subtly personify the conflict between younger, more adaptable blood and older, more traditionalist blood. Doug is a younger soul who could easily adapt to the technological innovations of the workplace, as well as pressure coming from multiple different angles. We get the feeling Richard can, at times, but we feel he would do it in a rougher, more over-the-top way (given what we see when he tires to build a ship-in-a-bottle). Not to mention, Richard seems sloppier and more of a roly-poly than Doug, and to add to that, even in his Sunday best Richard still seems a bit unkempt. With this in mind, the film details this kind of present generation gap that is hardly detailed or spoken about in society.The film has one core insight that I adore so much I may use it on a regular basis. The piece of wisdom comes from Richard who tells Doug, "we're all just here trying to get some food. Sometimes we bump into each other." This is a beautiful insight, almost as intriguing as Clerks' piece of insight about clerks ("just because they serve you doesn't mean they like you"). The quote basically sums up that we're all just looking for one simple goal and have one simple task, but sometimes we collide with someone who makes us a better person, gives us close companionship, or has absolutely no effect on us.The Promotion, in short, is kind of a damning movie. Sometimes it's funny, sometimes it's dry. Sometimes it's observant, sometimes it's passive. Sometimes it wants to focus on its characters' masculinity, sometimes it just wants to have awkward silences. Very often it feels like a teenager who occasionally wants to be insightful and sometimes just wants to be lazy.Starring: Seann William Scott and John C. Reilly. Directed by: Steven Conrad.

Fairly sloppy indie comedy about two guys, Seann William Scott and John C. Reilly, vying for a promotion to head manager at a soon-to-open branch of the grocery store at which they work. One might expect it to be about the over-the-top pranks the two play on each other, but this film chooses to play it much more realistically. Each mostly just hopes the other will fail and perhaps does subtler things to cause the other to trip. Some people have found that boring, but I think it was the right choice. The comedy is quirky, and it frequently, I must admit, flops. But when it works sometimes it does so brilliantly, and the film certainly has its great moments (Scott's discovery of the ancientness of a Hilights-like magazine he finds at the doctor's office, for example, or the brief flashback to Reilly's improbable biker gang days). Perhaps the aspect that makes the film succeed most is its affection for its characters. The two competitors are both nice guys at heart, and both have believable reasons for needing this promotion. Far from being a great film, but it's worth a viewing.

"The Promotion" is not a great or memorable comedy, but it's a brave one. Brave in that it doesn't give you what you expect from a comedy about Sean William Scott and John C. Reilly vying for the same promotion in a supermarket chain. The expectation is physical humor, gross-out shenanigans and general mayhem. What you get is a much more understated comedy that's built upon that foundation but ends completely different. Some will find this violation of expectations refreshing -- others will end up let down and bored.Scott and Reilly are assistant managers for a fictitious supermarket in Chicago. Richard (Reilly) is a recovering drug addict that has just transferred from Canada, which makes him a threat for the manager position of a new location set to open up in the future. It's a job that Doug (Scott) was a shoe-in for and one he was hoping would get him and his wife (Jenna Fischer) out of their thin-walled apartment and away from their banjo-playing sex fiend neighbor. Both are men in their early 30s trying to get to the next level and both are willing to do what it takes to get there.Normally, this is where the comedy goes chaotic with the rival asst. managers pulling obscene and childish pranks on one another, but not in "The Promotion." The immaturity is there, no doubt, but in more realistic fashion: the lying and cheating is a bit more subtle. The laugh factor might take a shot, but the conflict escalation stays strong even if the lid doesn't quite burst like it ought to.Creator Steve Conrad (writer of "The Pursuit of Happiness") deserves a pat on the back for this effort. His film is not the entertaining gut-buster most would make it out to be, but it's still funny. It just doesn't go out on a limb for some of the cheap jokes and slapstick of its blue-collar comedy predecessors. There's still foul language like Doug cursing at the gang kids hanging out in the store parking lot and perverted humor like when the store's Latinos convince Richard to ask one of the women about a supposedly excellent "sauce" that she "makes." It's there, but not as outlandish.The real persuading factor with "The Promotion" is its unspectacular but mildly poignant ending. Conrad actually has something intelligent to say in his film, or at least a proposed new way of looking at things. This is where those other more hysterical films comes up with some bogus, cheesy and marginally amusing ending to cool down the hijinx. "Promotion" makes a clear choice between the two possible endings to this story and offers up a unique explanation for it. That's a positive way of defying genre conventions.The entertainment threshold is certainly capped or limited by Conrad's approach, but it's applaudable in numerous ways and still enjoyable. It's scaled back and if you're open to that idea, it works. No person can check all expectations at the door upon watching a movie, but "The Promotion" will benefit from the open minds of viewers who choose to have them.~Steven CVisit my site http://moviemusereviews.com

"The Promotion" could easily have been written as a gross out comedy, in which case it could take it's place among the many failures of that overworked genre. Instead, it is a drama that includes amusing situations, none of which resort to slapstick for laughs. Sensitive performances by both Sean William Scott and John C. Reilly, add immeasurably to the film. There is a feeling that "I've been in situations like this myself". In the end the movie has a lot to say about honesty and relationships. Both main characters elicit sympathy, and the outcome of the supermarket promotion is in doubt until the final deciding interview. - MERK