Waiting Review

I'm definitely late to writing a review on the 2005 comedy movie, written and directed by Rob McKittrick, but as a former restaurant staff employee, these jokes just really hit home.

Poster sourced from the iTunes website.

During my junior year of college, I decided to get a job at a restaurant right down the street from my dorm on campus. While I've had great times working there as a busser and made friends in all departments, it eventually wore me down and made me hate the industry for numerous reasons. I'm sure many people previously in or still in the restaurant business will attest similarly to myself.

This past rainy Memorial Day weekend was spent inside watching movies, and the 2005 comedy movie Waiting came up on my Netflix feed (it said it was the last day to watch it on the platform, I partially felt like I had to watch it). Thankfully, this movie was absolutely hilarious to watch, and as a former restaurant employee, I was able to relate to the jokes so easily, making the whole experience even better than before.

Ryan Reynolds and Justin Long as their characters in Waiting. Photo sourced from Roger Ebert's movie review website.

The piece, in short, follows the story of the employees of the Applebee's/T.G.I. Friday's-esque restaurant called Shenanigans. The piece is jam-packed with jokes, between dealing with difficult guests, the cooks messing with people's food, and workplace relationships (romantic and non-romantic).

The piece has many familiar faces, including Ryan Reynolds, Anna Faris, Justin Long, Luis Guzmán, and Dane Cook, just to name a few. This was a full production too, with a complete cast and crew, according to the IMDB credits.

Some other interesting facts I've read about the movie:

- Director and writer Rob McKittrick also wrote for the 2018 movie Tag. I found this to be funny just because I remember going to the movie theatres in 2018 and seeing advertisements for Tag.

- The restaurant is an old altered Bennigan's restaurant. Bennigan's, according to Wikipedia, is an Irish-pub themed American restaurant that was first established in Atlanta, Georgia.

- Comedian Dane Cook basically had a cameo... he made up all the lines for his part in the movie.

- Rob McKittrick worked in a restaurant for about three years prior to making the movie... I feel like this information is evident throughout the piece. If you've worked in the food service industry, you know what I mean.

- After the end credits, there is a Rube Goldberg machine that plays (I was fascinated by this part for some reason).

I overall really enjoyed this piece. I think the only critique I have for the piece is that it has aged a tiny bit. Some of the references are a little old school (obviously 2000's era) and this piece is clearly not for kids (it is rated R). Absolutely hilarious though watching it as a college student, and I highly recommend.