This flick must be really edgy, original, and entertaining...If you haven't been exposed to any film before, say-- 1998.What seemingly held the promise of being an off-beat, independent, semi-obscure B-Movie gem winds up a straight-to-DVD feeling, poor man's pulp fiction copied copy with the usual, check-the-reference-box filthy-wit run-on sentence dialogue, charactery characters and the regularly-paced twist within a twist cues that read like a connect-the-dots game on a fast food placemat.I can't say it was all bad-- there were a few bright bits sprinkled about, and I can't figure out how exactly Dave Foley suddenly showed up in the movie, but there he was.I couldn't decide if he was playing a character I was supposed to be interested in and wanted to know more about or if he was merely performing an old unused Kids In The Hall skit and won some crazy drunken Texas Poker game with the filmmakers and to square the bet they wrote the sketch into the script they just happen to be shooting that weekend.There were a couple of half-decent moments, a nicely calculated editing payoff here and there, some near-interesting if should have been truncated sequences, and even a chuckle or three, accidentally trapped inside the movie-- like an enemic colony of semi-talented honey-bees frozen in amber-- but somebody couldn't stop cut-and-pasting in these heavily soundtracked music video 'tone poems' that separated the parts of the movie where actors spoke and interacted and "story" happened, coming in at regularly paced intervals where I suppose the commercials will be placed in later when it runs on some triple-digit cable channel at three-thirty in the morning.I did noticed a few lucky good castings (mostly the cameos by Paul Dooley and Peter Jason) and I kinda half-expected Quentin Tarantino himself to appear in the film at some point, playing some creepy, scatalogically-mouthed Coroner's Office worker telling some colorful and convoluted dirty jokes or some equally weird and creepy strip club patron.Quentin's always playing some type of a creepy guy character.I think he's just kind of a creepy-looking dude.

Beyond that point, it's Wild Things.This is a fantastic flick with incredible acting on all fronts. . .for the first hour and 28 minutes. Beyond that, it's an all-out race to the bottom. From a tale of a man breaking down in the style of Falling Down - with an acting prowess nearly equal to that of Michael Douglas - it becomes a tale of who can screw who the most. Within the span of three minutes, these characters change themselves from tortured souls dealing with life's unfairness into caricatures of every gang-crime movie that had the bad sense to be put on film. Either the writer for the first ninety five percent of the film was fired, or suffered a psychotic breakdown. We placed this movie on our Netflix queue by mistake (meant to request the more recent Dane Cook flick - never you mind what that says about our cinematic tastes) and were pleasantly surprised. . .right up until the end.

Damn nice little surprise this one was! The little prologue sequence, with Matt Dillon's witty voice-over, lead me to believe that the movie indeed would have a sharp edge to it. Then the viewer gets transported to events that happened 36 hours earlier, and you start watching a mild comedy, easy-going with a touch of romance even. But after 15 minutes, Matt Dillon's character gets fired from his job as a bank manager, and things start going down-hill rapidly from there on for the poor dude.The movie just keeps on getting nuttier with every scene. Some of the humor is gross and rude (especially when it's coming from Dillon's dubious life-long buddy Jack, played by a pretty hilarious Steve Zahn), but it's in perfect balance with the sad and extremely funny events that happen to David (Matt Dillon's Character). Chistina Applegate is in it too, as David's girlfriend (I didn't even recognize her at first, even though she still looks beautiful as ever), and you should wait until you see what she comes up with, totally unexpected.Both the cinematography and editing are slick and modern-looking. Lots of nice little tricks in the editing department (speed-up sequences and sudden freeze-frames), but they are never too dominant and remain pleasant eye-candy (if you fancy those kind of techniques, which I do). It all adds up to a smooth look and a fast pace. In a movie like EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH, that dresses itself mildly hip, a good soundtrack is as equally important. And this movie delivers on that. A decent rock/electro soundtrack, and even better: Most of that music seems to be composed especially for this movie. So they didn't go and got some bands to be featured on the soundtrack, but most of this type of music on the soundtrack is instrumental, contemporary and suites the film well.Without spoiling anything, I might add that this movie will have quite some surprises in store for the viewer in the third act. Indeed, it all seems to lead up to that moment where David will snap and go nuts. As much as it is fun to anticipate on when that moment will be, I was very much surprised that there is more to it. Which left me with a satisfied feeling after I was finished watching this movie.This movie confirmed something I know already: I love Matt Dillon. I love witty, clever, fast-paced and good-looking indie-flicks. Hence, EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH is a winner!

Seems like a pretty innocent choice at first- the name "employee of the month" might ring bells with "Office Space," and the show "Office Clerk." I think not. This isn't even a dark comedy. The director of this movie, whoever the guy's name, was a complete jerk, and has a sick, perverse mind. There is no pleasure in being lured into feeling sorry for a complete loser who cheats on his wife, steals from his top-notch job, and lies through his teeth 24/7. The second I walk in to the room when my family are watching it (and believe me, they were only watching it more because they were praying that there would be at least some relief, perhaps even some fable in the end, sending a warm message of good justice done and when the good guys look good). All the good guys were killed so long ago that they had no time to look good. No memorial was made.This movie has borderline insanity. It disrespects the elderly, the dead and women- and the director tries to make people to like it.I gave this movie a two only because the soundtrack was good. But not even that was all that memorable. If you were lucky enough to not see this in theaters, definitaly my friends- do not do this at home.