Get A Job Ok Dad Gosh

Shot in 2012 but shelved until 2016 for reasons we’ll probably never learn, Get a Job is a film that’s been on my radar for quite some time – mostly because of the actors involved in its production. Miles Teller, Anna Kendrick, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Bryan Cranston, Marcia Gay Harden, Nicholas Braun, Brandon T. Jackson, and Alison Brie are all actors I like, so putting them all in the same movie has to yield at least some successful scenes, right? There’s also an inherent curiosity that comes from a film that sat on a shelf for this long, isn’t there? You want to see just how big of a disaster it must be for its financiers to just eat the money that was put into it. Maybe it’s just me. Get a Job is about millennials who have been spoon-fed accomplishments their entire lives but after graduating college begin to learn that the world isn’t all sunflowers, rainbows, and praise. Our lead is Will (Teller), who gets promised a job, finds the company downsized, and then has to figure out a way to make ends meet. He wants to make videos for a living, and has done so successfully – but not monetarily – on YouTube. He lives with three stoners (Mintz-Plasse, Braun, and Jackson) and has a girlfriend named Jillian (Kendrick), all of whom face struggles of their own. But, still, Get a Job does manage to throw in a few solid points at the way the job market functions for those on the outside looking in. It gets points for that, and it is well-acted. Miles Teller is the perfect kind of likable jerk whom you eventually can’t help but root for, even if you also sometimes want to punch him in the face. Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Nicholas Braun, and Brandon T. Jackson make for likable supporting stoners. Anna Kendrick, Bryan Cranston, and Marcia Gay Harden are as reliable as ever. This is a film whose problems come from its screenplay and/or editing. It might be one of them, but it’s more likely that both are to blame. Ultimately a dud, but a fascinating dud that did have a few worthwhile moments, I can understand why Get a Job found itself sitting on a shelf for four years after it was shot. Whether there was an attempt to salvage it in the editing room – its cut-to-the-bone running time might suggest that – or if it simply was an unfunny, lightweight attempt to tackle some serious subject matter, we may never know. The result is a disappointing movie featuring good actors playing uninvolving characters – with just a few moments that make you long for a better movie. Bottom Line: Good actors can’t save a poor script or bad editing, and that’s what’s happened here. Get a Job is a film that had much more potential than the final result shows. Recommendation: It’s not worth watching, but I’d like to point out that neither is Post Grad. So there. [rating=1.5]