Waiting...

One day at a chain restaurant called Shenaniganz. Dean has waited tables there for four years and is going nowhere. Mitch, the new hire, is being trained by Monty, and the training consists less of how to treat customers than of the games the staff play on each other. The gap between the kitchen, what happens behind the service door and the face turned to the customer is the whole material of the film. When Dean learns how far a former classmate has got, he sees his situation, quits and goes back to school. Rob McKittrick directed and wrote it, having written the script while working as a waiter. Ryan Reynolds, Anna Faris and Justin Long are in the cast. It was shot in New Orleans and in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana. The budget was 3 million dollars; the film took more than twice that in its opening weekend and reached roughly 18.6 million in total. The reviews were bad: 29 percent on Rotten Tomatoes across 92 critics, and one and a half stars from Roger Ebert. It nonetheless built a small and durable following, particularly among people who have worked in restaurants. A direct-to-DVD sequel, Still Waiting, followed in 2009. Who it is for: anyone who knows a restaurant kitchen from the inside and likes crude humour. Who it is not for: viewers wanting anything from the script. The film circles inside a single day, most characters amount to one joke, and much of the comedy is off-putting on purpose.