Self-awareness and acknowledgement of odious behavior doesn’t automatically grant one a license to indulge in said conduct, a fact lost on Rob McKittrick’s Waiting…, which doles out a healthy portion of crass gay-related humor before having one of its characters defensively label such antics “an exercise in retarded homophobic futility.” Of course, it’s become de rigueur for frat boy-targeted comedies to indulge in as many same sex-related jokes as time will allow, but even by these low standards, this service industry yuckfest—about the unbearably wacky employees of a kitschy Bennigans-style eatery named Shenaniganz—exhibits an eye-popping number of gags involving male genitalia, a fixation exemplified by a restaurant staff game in which macho guys attempt to make other macho guys look at their exposed packages, and then punish those who sneak a peek by kicking them in the rump and calling them gay. As an equal-opportunity ridiculer convinced that its moronic minimum wage workers are justified in looking down at their cartoonishly rude customers, the film also targets foreigners, overweight people, and women. Yet McKittrick’s fast food fiasco—filled with scenes of kitchen personnel hocking loogies in mashed potatoes and dropping steaks on the floor—is less offensively distasteful than it is simply puerile and pathetic. Leading the Shenaniganz idiot brigade is Monty, a too-cool-for-school smart-ass portrayed by Ryan Reynolds as a cross between his much-funnier Van Wilder and Two Guys, A Girl and A Pizza Place’s motormouth wiseacre Berg. Unwisely kept on a mile-long leash by his director, the smirking Reynolds freely indulges in his pretty-boy brand of egotistical sarcasm, delivering acid-tongued rejoinders for every comment made by his one-dimensional cohorts, a predictable smorgasbord of stereotypes including the earnest dreamer (Justin Long), the raging psycho (Alanna Ubach), the sage African-American (Chi McBride), the sex-obsessed Latino (Luis Guzmán), and the stupid stoners (Max Kasch and a thoroughly, unforgivably wasted Andy Milonakis). Ultimately, though, Waiting… merely serves up a stale dish of dim-witted drivel.
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