Tonight, I rented and watched The Promotion, starring Seann William Scott and John C. Reilly.
It seems I was mistaken in my judgement of this particular film upon merely reading the blurb on the back of the DVD case. On the front cover, Jeff Craig from Sixty Second Preview even labelled this film as being "Terrifically smart and funny." Take a look...
It's strange because I could have sworn that when something is classified as smart and funny, it makes you laugh. I have to admit, I did not laugh once throughout the entire film. I barely even smiled. This leads me to believe that all if not most one-line reviews located on the covers of DVDs are simply puff pieces written to sell the film. I bet Jeff Craig doesn't even exist but if he does and did indeed write that one-line review, then it would seem he only watched sixty seconds of it as stated in his company's name. Usually I love John C. Reilly's films and Seann William Scott - well, let's just say you can't live with him and you can't kill him. I don't mind his existence but what annoys me is that he had to rely on the stupidity of his character "Stifler" seen in the original series of American Pie films - before they decided to swap out all of the actors for a group of people who no one had ever seen prior - in order to get laughs. In fact, as much as I liked the movie "Dude, Where's My Car?" the first few times, it was the same premise at base value.
You'd think one would realise that after doing so many films in which one played a character who was essentially stupid and getting laughs, that this formula works quite well and that trying anything else, especially an intelligent comedy, would be nothing short of possessing the IQ of one's previous roles. I don't really know why I established Seann as "one" just then, it's not as if anyone reading this is unclear about who I'm referring to. Reilly on the other hand, seems to still be playing the rather less intelligent character, an ironically intelligent move on his part considering that even though he is a smart man, he is also very good at playing stupid but funny characters.
I'd also like to address the line seen underneath the main title on the cover. It clearly states "From the writer of The Pursuit of Happyness". I would just like to say that I actually liked that film and that I believe Will Smith really made that role his own and was just a genuinely brilliant choice to play the character. If I may, I would like to perform a brief exercise for all of those who've seen The Pursuit of Happyness. For those of you who are uninitiated with this film, feel free to skip this section. Okay, are you ready?
I'm going to begin by revealing to you that in the movie The Promotion, Seann William Scott also narrates throughout the film via voice over. Now I want you to close your eyes and try to remember whatever you can of The Pursuit of Happyness. Make sure it's a scene you can remember quite clearly; a scene you can recall some of the lines from. Once you've captured that scene in your mind, take Will Smith out of the picture and replace him with Seann William Scott. Now play the scene over in your head with Seann reciting all of Will's lines. It just doesn't seem right does it?
All in all, I felt that The Promotion had very little substance plot-wise. Although it appeared to be deep, to me it seemed more like a high school student rambling on and on about the same point in an essay so that he could fill up the word limit. I was tempted to stop the film about halfway through but decided to keep watching considering I had paid $4.95 for this movie and was going to stick with it in the hope that some form of climax would reveal itself and the movie would get interesting.
This never happened.
The action in the film remained quite flat and even though some form of conflict did appear, it was never resolved. Rather than trying to solve their problems, pushing through to the end and growing in the process, one protagonist got exactly what he wanted, the other simply went back to where he had come from. It almost felt like watching an episode of South Park that just wasn't funny and consisted of nothing slightly interesting because I was sure that, had there been a sequel to this movie, nothing in the normal world would have really changed and even though *Kenny was killed by a giant fiery boulder in the previous episode, he still would be alive and well in the next.
I'm really not sure what prompted me to rent this movie. I'd not heard anything about it, I'd not seen any trailers, I didn't even know if it had been in cinemas or not. All I know is, prior to tonight, I had rented and watched every other film I found interesting contained within that video store and thus, was given the opportunity to know how a student dubbed team captain feels when he has to choose the uncoordinated kid because he's the only one who hasn't been assigned a team.
I give this film a two out of five for trying - in very much the same way I would give a lower-functioning autistic child a golden star because he spelled his name correctly on his exam paper.
Yours sincerely,
Riddick-ulous.
*I used Kenny being killed in South Park as a perfect example for comparison of a show in which almost nothing ever changes from episode to episode.
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