Employee of the Month (2006 film)
 | This article's tone or style may not reflect the encyclopedic tone used on Wikipedia. |
- This article is for the 2006 film; for the 2004 film by the same name, see Employee of the Month (2004 film). For other uses of the name Employee of the Month, see "Employee of the Month".
| Employee of the Month | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | Greg Coolidge |
| Written by | Screenplay Don Calame Chris Conroy Greg Coolidge Story Don Calame Chris Conroy |
| Produced by | Peter Abrams |
| Starring | Dane Cook Jessica Simpson Dax Shepard Andy Dick Tim Bagley Efren Ramirez and Harland Williams |
| Cinematography | Tony Richmond |
| Music by | John Swihart |
| Distributed by | Lions Gate Films |
Release dates | October 6, 2006 |
| Language | English |
Employee of the Month is a film released on October 6, 2006. It focuses on events that happen at a Costco-like store (and indeed filmed in a Costco store), where two co-workers, Zack (Dane Cook) and Vince (Dax Shepard), compete for the affection of the new cashier, Amy (Jessica Simpson). The movie is directed by Greg Coolidge and is rated PG-13 for crude and sexual humor and language. It was released on DVD January 16, 2007.
Plot outline
Template:Spoiler Zack (Dane Cook), a slacker box boy who lives with his grandma, works at Super Club (a fictional warehouse store) with his fellow slacker buddies Lon (Andy Dick), Russell (Harland Williams) and Iqbal (Brian George). Vince (Dax Shepard) has received the "Employee of the Month" award for seventeen months in a row with some assistance from his very loyal and subdued sidekick Jorge (Efren Ramirez). The store manager in a storewide meeting announces that if Vince wins "Employee of the Month" for the 18th time in the following month, he'll also win a new Malibu car. He also announces that the store will have a new employee the next day, Amy (Jessica Simpson).
The next day at work, both Zack and Vince meet Amy and compete for her affection. Zack tries to show Amy around, but Vince steals her away from him before he can. The human resource management clerk is easily bribed with some candy; thus through Russell Zack obtains Amy's personal file to see what her story is and why she transferred to the store. Zack meets his three buddies up in their secret lounge, and Russell proceeds to tell Zack that Amy has a thing for the Employee of the Month and that she left her last job because of relationship problems with the previous winner. Upon hearing this, Zack decides to win Employee of the Month in order to impress Amy.
The next day, Vince is shocked to see Zack on time for work and is a bit worried when Zack also gets the managers' attention. However, things don't seem to be going well with Amy, who is impressed by Vince's scanning abilities (he is the fastest cashier in the Southwest). Although Zack tries to beat Vince to clean up a jar of food that he broke on purpose, Vince manages to beat him in that task as well.
Vince has a date with Amy later that night, so Zack, trying to ruin Vince's date, steals his wallet, leaving Vince with no money. The plan backfires when the waitress lets Vince have their meal for free because he's the fastest cashier in the Southwest. Vince takes Amy home and tries to smooth talk his way inside and also awkwardly kisses her before she retreats inside.
The next day, Zack is alerted by Semi, the security guard, that there is a lost child in the store but Vince gets to the lost child first. As the days go by, Zack is continually frustrated in his quest for Employee of the Month and begins to give up hope. Iqbal, however, gives him some encouragement and right after their conversation, an inspired Zack gains even more hope after he gets the star for the day by helping a senior citizen lift a coffin onto her cart. Zack then proceeds to ask an impressed Amy out on a date. Later that night, Zack takes Amy to the now closed Super Club for their date. After a night of mini-golfing and movie watching, Zack and Amy have a lengthy conversation in which they find that they have a lot in common.
The next day at work, the manager announces that his brother, who is the president of Super Club, is coming to the store for an inspection. He also announces that one of the cashiers has died and someone has to take their place. Zack volunteers to take the position, hoping that it will help earn him another star. The manager's strict older brother comes in, and acknowledges Zack's performance, which earns him the gold star for the day. Zack receives a swipe card that will allow him entrance to the cashier's lounge, but his friends (who he has been neglecting) don't seem too excited. Later that night, Vince and Jorge sneak into Zack's house and set all of his clocks back in order to make Zack late the next morning.
The next morning, Zack wakes up and realizes that his alarm is wrong and he only has twelve minutes to get to work. Iqbal notices Zack hasn't come in yet, and when Zack arrives just on time, he discovers Iqbal punched in for him. Zack gets even with Vince by putting his car on a shelf and allowing it to be sold to a customer. Jorge, whom Vince earlier promised that he could buy the very old car for $10,000 (which Jorge found attractive even though he was not even allowed a test ride) is angry at Vince that he has sold the car for only $20 to someone else.
As the days go by, Zack accumulates more and more stars and only has one less than Vince. In order to gain that star, Zack volunteers to play on the company softball team. However, he is faced with a dilemma when he agrees to cover for Iqbal's shift at the same time. Ultimately, he begins Iqbal's shift, but decides to leave partway through because things are going slow at the Super Club. He shows up just in time to help Super Club defeat their opponents and is awarded the gold star for the day. But while Zack was gone, Super Club got extremely busy and Iqbal was fired because he wasn't there for customer assistance. Due to his firing and Zack's ignoring his friends, they all decide not to talk to him.
Later that night, Zack tries to apologize to his friends, but they don't accept, feeling that he betrayed them just so he could sleep with Amy. Amy, overhearing this, becomes angry with Zack explaining that she doesn't have a thing for the Employee of the Month and she left her previous job because her ex-boyfriend was a jerk. Zack tries to apologize, but Amy will not listen and leaves.
In the morning, Zack quits his job but his grandmother encourages him to at least try and get things back to the way they were. Zack stops by Iqbal's house and apologizes to his friends but Iqbal thanks him. It turns out that since he lost his job his wife got up the courage to demand a promotion, which she received. Zack gets the guys to come with him to work so they can stop his resignation from being processed, by bribing the HRM clerk again.
Because Zack is still technically working at the Super Club, the tie between Zack and Vince for Employee of the Month will be broken with a scanning contest. Before the contest, Zack apologizes to Amy and thanks her for challenging him to be a better person. The contest starts off extremely close and it comes down to the last item: an untagged tire. In order to complete the contest, they both have to go to the other end of the store and find a tire with a tag on it. Vince eventually gets the tire back to the register just ahead of Zack and wins the contest. Semi, sensing something wrong with the competition, goes back to the security room to review the surveillance footage of the competition. Later that night, during the Employee of the Month ceremony, Semi interrupts everything to show that Vince cheated during the competition. Vince threw several items behind his back to save time and it is also revealed that he has done this many, many times before, thus not scanning some products, so giving them away. The managers proceed to fire Vince and declare Zack Employee of the Month, and he wins Amy over.
Vince starts working at the competing store Maxi-Mart (another fictional warehouse store). Vince has no car anymore, and has been convicted to stay near his house and work, which is checked by an electronic device around his ankle. He has to beg Jorge, who now has a car, for a ride to his work. Jorge refuses, but gives him a ride to the bus stop, which is apparently out of bounds for Vince's ankle bracelet. Template:Endspoiler
Cast
| Actor | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Dane Cook | Zack Bradley | Box Boy |
| Jessica Simpson | Amy Renfro | New Cashier |
| Dax Shepard | Vince Downey | Cashier, usually the Employee of The Month |
| Efren Ramirez | Jorge | "Vince's Box Boy" |
| Andy Dick | Lon | Optometrist |
| Harland Williams | Russell | Stocker |
| Brian George | Iqbal | Electronics Supervisor |
Box Office
Following its release on October 6th, the film became the #1 most requested movie on AOL[1], and was released along with The Departed and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning. Despite the poor critical response, the film managed open to nearly $12 million in its opening weekend, debuting at #4 just behind Open Season. The movie was made on a $12 million budget, and it finished with a little over $28 million in the United States.
![[1]](http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/6691/untitledsk2.jpg){kind=link}
The film has started to be released world-wide. In United Kingdom the movie debuted at #4 opening with over £1,000,000. The total world-wide figures for the film is of $34 million.
Cook has posted this on his official website talking about "Employee's" Box office success; [2] "We already made back our entire budget and now the movie is making a profit. Of the top 3 movies, we are the only film already out of the black (sic) and making money! This is great for me and my cast. It has sent a message that I can open a film up against HUGE COMPETITION with huge advertising budgets."
Promotion
The movie received heavy promotion from not only TV stations such as MTV, which aired sneak peeks of the movie every night after the "10 Spot", but a variety of websites including sites such as Perez Hilton, Myspace, and YouTube promoted the movie.
Jessica Simpson also appeared in many TV shows such as The Tonight Show, The Today Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live, and MTV's Total Request Live to promote the movie release. She appeared by herself on every show except TRL, where she was joined by Dane Cook.
Dane Cook appeared as the host of the 2006 season opener of "Saturday Night Live"[3] to promote the movie, though no mention of the film was made during his opening monologue or the subsequent sketches.
DVD
The January 16th, 2007 region one DVD release of the movie contains two commentaries: one featuring the director (Greg Coolidge) on his own, giving more technical information about the film. The second commentary features the director and star Dane Cook, who spend more time pointing out the origins of gags and actors throughout the movie. The disc also contains some "alternative dialogue" improv scenes by actors Andy Dick and Harland Williams; an alternate opening with Eva Longoria showing Vince and Zack's first day on the job, watching a video tape for new employees; an "At Work with Lon" feature showing Dick in character attempting to help to customers at "Super Club"; plus trailers for other Lionsgate films.
The film is also available in Blu-Ray format.
Trivia
| This article contains a list of miscellaneous information. (May 2007) |
- Dane Cook is a die hard Boston Red Sox fan. In the movie when Super Club is playing Maxi Mart in the baseball game. Super Club is Red (In honor of the Sox) and Maxi Mart is Grey and Blue (In honor of the Yankees). This is a play on the famous rivalry.
- The names of the characters Glen Gary and Glen Ross are a reference to the classic play Glengarry Glen Ross.
- Just before the start of the game, the uniforms are questioned for being pink, to which the reply is "We accidentally washed them with the red socks". A play of the famous Boston team.
- Brian George also plays a supporting role in this movie. George is best known otherwise for his role in Seinfeld as Babu Bhat.
- Employee of the Month was shot at a Costco Wholesale warehouse club in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Products in several interior shots display the Kirkland Signature house brand logo. In the scene where Zack and Vince are doing the final Employee of the Month challenge, on the shopping carts it says clearly Costco Wholesale. Construction of a Sam's Club store across the street had recently been completed; the rivalry between Super Club and Maxi Mart in the film parodies the real life competition between Costco and Sam's Club. The Costco location chosen is well known to Albuquerque residents; for a long time, it had been the only such store in town, previously known as Price Club.
- It would appear that no one seems to get any days off, as Dane Cook and Dax Shepard's characters are competing virtually every day to get a gold star including Thanksgiving as this film takes place in November.
- In the Steaksmith's scene Harland Williams compares Dane Cook's character Zack to the drummer from REO Speedwagon(in that nobody knows his name), while REO Speedwagon's "Can't fight this feeling" plays in the background.