Waiting offers several great ways to open up, but I think I'll go with the one where I say that "what Supersize Me did for fast food, this film will do for eating anywhere but in the safety of your home. Waiting in the simpler sense is a film about waiting tables in a restaurant such as TGIF or Applebees, and in a more generous metaphorical sense is about waiting for your life to begin in that awkward period between young adulthood and older adulthood.

The film is an R-Rated crass-fest that seemed like a rushed attempt to try to cash-in on the recent resurgence of good R-Rated comedy fare (Wedding Crashers, 40 Year Old Virgin) but doesn't even come close to even The Girl Next Door, much less the American Pie cheap-trilogy. The film takes place entirely inside a restaurant populated by all types of people you've either worked with, for or been waited on. First time writer/director Rob McKittrick poses his script as kind of an "us against them" sort of affair, but forgets that the "us" is mostly "them" and the "them" is mostly "us" - thus appealing to a more limited core audience of people who have worked in such circumstances. Which isn't to say that the film couldn't be enjoyed by someone who's never worked at such a restaurant (I've never worked at a convenience store - but I loved Clerks).

Which brings up the films biggest flaw, namely it's a really obvious and cheap rip-off of Kevin Smith. From the Jay and Silent Bob-like stoners, to Ryan Reynolds, whom, as always, does his convincing Jason Lee impression - to the in your face sexuality and tell-it-like-it-is style. Does it work? I'll admit that there are laughs and some moments of decent dialogue - but there is so little going on and a plot that revolves around a game the male employees play that involves surprising their male co-workers by certain time-honored formations of their genitalia. The object is to get them to unwittingly gaze at such unpleasantness as the "batwing" or the "goat" and then enjoy the victory of being able to call them a fag and give them a predetermined number of kicks in the ass - depending upon which formation you managed to subject them to. If there's a plot in this film - that's it. By comedy standards it cuts it once in a while, by good movie standards seldom. The movie is sort of presented through the eyes of a trainee played by (Freaks and Geeks) John Francis Daley, who is introduced to all of the bizarre ritual and dysfunctional personnel. He pretty much just reacts in mute horror to most of it, until at a party after work he inexplicably snaps and goes on a tirade where he takes down everyone in the cast. A little pip-squeak of a newbie going after all manner of knife-wielding psychos - this was about as plausible as the finicky female customer who inspected her meal with microscopic intensity mistaking a twist of pubic hair as alfalfa sprouts. McKittrick asks us to buy this along with quite a bit of other just careless crap. There was a good idea in here somewhere, but the execution is half-baked at best - with a countless warmed-over gags from any number of superior films.

I attended the screening with cinema wunderkind Adam Mast and he liked it somewhat less than I did, to be sure - pointing out that there wasn't a single likable character among the rather large cast of waiters and cooks - which is true with the exception of Justin Long who was effective in his role as the only normal well-adjusted member of the crew. SNL vet David Koechner was fun as the manager, Chi McBride was somewhat effective as a wisdom dispensing dishwasher and Kaitlin Doubleday didn't bother me as a blonde waitress who basically didn't do anything much at all - but she remained likable. As Adam was most adamant about, Waiting is mostly a plotless series of gross-out gags and occasionally funny one-liners, that was a shameless rip-off of Clerks and the restaurant scenes in Office Space. Forget about a plot, or a character arc - although I'm afraid that near the end McKittrick tried for a poignant statement involving Justin Long's character - I sincerely hope I'm mistaken.

Speaking of mistakes we sat by a few of our friends who were pretty well cooked themselves and boy they laughed themselves soar from soup to nuts and afterward had harsh words when we tried to criticize the film. Were they however to watch the film in the sober light of Sunday morning I'm convinced that, to some extent, they'd recognize the error of their ways. Saturday Night Live just isn't as funny on Tuesday afternoon and seeing this film drunk at a midnight screening is probably the only way I could heartily recommend it.

On the lighter side it was kind of fun to watch Luis Guzman (a sometimes serious actor) throw himself into this juvenile jizz with such gusto, and wonder boy of the year Dane Cook gets a few moments to shine (which of course brought down the house, because he's the inside cool comic cat d'jour.) I was disappointed by his lack of screen-time, because he was really the only reason I was interested in seeing the film in the first place. I won't spoil the grand poobah of gross-out moments for you. Let's just say it involves the ersatz revenge of the waitresses in the boys game of dick and balls. Let's just say it was kind of Girls Gone Wild gone wrong - horribly wrong. I'll leave you with that and let you make your own call. Be warned however: Watch this movie at the peril of never being able to eat food that your own hands did not prepare again.