Sadly being overlooked by another movie also starring John C. Reilly namely Step Brothers, The Promotion is the far more enjoyable of the two. Ironically I find myself reviewing a movie so close to reality, after another review in which I said reality in movies pretty much sucks. The story of The Promotion follows Doug Stauber (Sean William Scott) and Richard Welhner (Reilly) as they both competes against each other to become manager of a new supermarket opening near Stauber's family home.
The Promotion stars very much like a normal civil competition between two same level employees working for a major supermarket chain, but inevitably ends up becoming a comedic war. What's great about The Promotion is it's a comedy style war that is actually funny. What makes the movie work is that it takes issues that might occur in real life and then pushes the envelope ever so slightly, you're laughing because you can actually envisage the things happening on screen happening in real life. You have overblown scenarios where political correctness has gone way to far, or the unpredictability of a customer who you feel you have bent over backwards for. Added to this you have situations with people that don't ever remember your name, obviously because you're in what they consider to be too menial a job to have anything of any significance to say. As I watched The Promotion I saw so many things that I could relate to through my life, or of the lives of others that surround me.
Sean William Scott best known as Stifler from the original American Pie movies gives us another silly performance, though this time just the right side of reality. Nowhere near as cocky as his American Pie character, Stauber is the sort of person that when he gets upset would literally throw his toys from the pram or go and have a damn good cry. Stauber has just that much humanness about him that you can really relate too. I find myself for the fourth time being pleased with this actors performance, I just wish that someone would offer him some more serious work.
Frizzy haired Reilly, a well known face in the movie industry this year is cementing his career in both comedy and serious roles. As Wahlner though, he is the character you love to hate, doing all the things wrong, yet treated like he has done everything right. But this is not a one sided piece, it's not all about Stauber being right and Wahlner being wrong, director and writer of the movie Steve Conrad makes very sure you see this as a two sided coin, showing the human side of Wahlner by giving him a loving family, and pressures that from the offset you do not expect.
Where I think The Promotion fails is in the abysmal casting of Lili Taylor as Reilly's wife Lori; and I must say that on a normal day I love Lili Taylor, I cannot get enough of this underused actress but... there needs to be a line drawn somewhere. For reasons best unknown it has been decided that Lori is from Scotland, this accent is so bad that it needs to be explained to the viewer too many times. When this movie hits Scottish cinemas I can foresee absolute outrage (that's if it makes it to Scottish cinemas). Taylor's accent is as much Pakistani as it is French, as much South African as it is Irish, biut one thing it clearly is not is Scottish, when the awards ceremonies come round Taylor will be their to receive the worst accent award. I cannot emphasise enough how bad this accent is, each time she opens her mouth you want to plant a fist in it, what on earth were the producers of this movie thinking of? Had they ever met someone from Scotland? Did they think it would be hip to make them sound like a mongrel race that nobody would want to EVER be associated with?
Each time Taylor came on screen, we covered our ears (quite literally) her involvement has little to do with this film, and if you can get passed this accent then The Promotion makes for one of the best comedies of the year. This is a movie you can really laugh at, it's well paced, it's real, and at the same time it's very silly. If you wish for the comedy of the first few Will Ferrell movies then it's here, only without Ferrell.
