Employee of the Month (2004)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Trailer-Against The Ropes, The United States Of Leland Main Menu Audio & Animation Theatrical Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	2004
Running Time	94:11
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Ads Then Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Mitch Rouse
Studio Distributor	DEJ Productions Paramount Home Entertainment	Starring	Matt Dillon Christina Applegate Steve Zahn Peter Jason Andrea Bendewald Fiona Gubelmann
Case	?
RPI	$29.95	Music	The 8th Grade Doug DeAngelis Kevin Haskins

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	Unknown	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	None	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	Yes, watch through for more and more twists!!????

    I chose to review this title on the basis of the presence of two of my favourite comic actors, Steve Zahn & Matt Dillon, and other than that really had very little knowledge of it.

    Employee of the Month follows 36 hours in the life of David (Matt Dillon), a self made man who has got himself into a career and is getting engaged to a beautiful girl from a rich family, Sarah (Christina Applegate). He works in a Bank in a junior management position and one of his colleagues from the bank, Wendy (Andrea Bendewald, who is the wife of the director) is going to be the maid of honour. His best friend, an annoying stoner and conman, Jack (Steve Zahn), is very much against the marriage and constantly tries to talk David out of going ahead with it. Everything starts to go wrong for David when he gets fired and his fiancé calls off the marriage all on one day. From here the plot twists and turns within a comedy thriller framework. To explain any more of the plot would spoil the twists, some of which are good and others of which are pretty clichéd.

    This is a frustrating film as it feels like it has some great elements, but the movie as a whole lacks coherence. The comedy swings wildly from laugh-out loud funny to mildly offensive to very black. Some sequences in the film really do not advance the story and others seem to have too many lines of dialogue. There are some very funny scenes such as the one in a restaurant with Sarah's parents. Matt Dillon was pretty good in the film, but Steve Zahn's character was a bit one-dimensional. The last 20 minutes or so move along well and really rescue the film from being a waste of time. Dave Foley also features as David's gay friend, Eric. The film was directed by first-time director Mitch Rouse.

    Not a terrible comedy thriller but certainly not the best one I have ever seen either. Probably worth a look if you like black comedies and/or the cast members.

Video

    The video quality is very good but not spectacular.

    The feature is presented in a 2.35:1 aspect ratio 16x9 enhanced which is most likely the original aspect ratio.

    The picture was quite clear and sharp throughout although not spectacularly so. There was no evidence of low level noise. The shadow detail was very good.

    The colour was very good with no major issues to report although there was some minor colour bleeding, especially from light colours.

    From an artefacts perspective I noticed some minor aliasing on car grilles, buildings and Venetian blinds. There was also some occasional edge enhancement.

    There are no subtitles.

    The disc is a DVD5 so there is no layer change.
    

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The audio quality is good.

    This DVD contains an English Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack encoded at 448 Kb/s.

    Dialogue was generally clear and easy to understand however it seemed to be mixed a little low, thus making some lines harder to make out.

    The score of this film by Doug De Angelis & Kevin Haskins is a fairly anonymous modern soundtrack with lots of bass. It does the job without standing out. The music was too loud when there was no dialogue, causing me to reach for the remote regularly through the film, turning down for music and up for dialogue.

    The surround speakers added some atmosphere and music.

     The subwoofer was used quite regularly for music and effects.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

    The menu was very simple allowing for scene access and to play the trailer. It was preceded by trailers for two other films.

Theatrical Trailer

    Presented 16x9 enhanced with 2.0 sound. Includes a few spoilers but generally does the job.

    This movie has recently been released in Region 1. The Region 4 version of this disc misses out on;

• A photo gallery
• A extra Spanish soundtrack

    The Region 1 version of this disc misses out on;

• Nothing

    On this basis you may as well buy the local product, however Region 1 is the official winner by a short half head.

    The video quality is very good.

    The audio quality is good but badly mixed.

    The disc has only a trailer as an extra.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall