Let me get this straight – a film with both Owen Wilson AND Vince Vaughn in it? Why, it must be comedic genius! The Internship has close to, if not the, very worst trailer of the year. It looks imbecilic and condescending and strays not a hair from the same tired shtick we’ve come to know from Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson. The plot of any Vince Vaughn film is Vince selling Vince. ConVince-ing us, if you will. Owen Wilson isn’t terribly different, but he’s shorter and pushes less. I’ve come to loathe the selling of Vince and I was not looking forward to a movie in which he mocks what I’ve been through (unemployed fortysomething landing a tech-savvy job).
I like being wrong. Really. It’s an acquired taste, and I don’t like it 100%. Who does? But I like being wrong from time-to-time about movies. It always gives you something to look forward to.
On that note, the film opens with salesmen Billy (Vaughn) and Nick (Wilson) getting psyched for a dinner schmooze by playing Alanis Morisette’s “Ironic.” The choice of song here is awesome – one that says, “I dare you to mock.” And I did not. Ironic, doncha think? The fellas have not yet been told they’re out of a job. Sucks, huh? After some soul searching and woman-losing, they end up with an Internship at Google along with a host of schoolkids. Everybody acknowledges this is wrong. This, of course, becomes the premise of the movie. Sell me, Vince Vaughn. Sell me on the idea of putting two old men who couldn’t program an abacus with a set of genius-level collegians.
Billy and Nick immediately get put in the losers bracket, teaming by default with the interns nobody else wanted. And the film makes no bones about their uselessness when it comes to computers, math, science, programming, calculation, techspeak, corporate culture, rule-
following, gadgetry … I’m sorry, why were these men chosen again? And what do they live on? Did the internship come with free food and housing? I guess it must have.
Now why the Hell did I like this thing more than I didn’t? Well, I liked adding the Dikembe Mutombo finger wag to the game of quidditch (of which our heroes were initiates, of course). And the running gags. The key to a good running gag is that it really can’t be funny at first, but the selling grows on you – like Billy insisting on a Flashdance metaphor to psych up his team. Flashdance hasn’t psyched anybody up since the days of leg warmers, but that didn’t stop him from call upon the film for inspiration to write an app or sell a product. Then there were the constant “on-the-line” references, corrected constantly to “on-line” by team head Lyle (Josh Brener). Again, there’s nothing funny in the initial joke (you hear me Tyler Perry?), but the repeated use and the one adversary’s need to correct with each repeated use … well that got to me.
Now, like any Vaughn/Wilson effort, part of it is just stupid. Great inspiration doesn’t come from strip clubs. Think of what kind of precedent that would set. And you can’t actually take a fortysomething new to the concept of a webcam and teach him how to do google tech support in a span of two months. That can’t actually happen. But for those who have been forced at gunpoint to read Who Moved My Cheese? This is a much better instrument for accepting change in your life.
Oh, and add Aasif Mandvi to the list of folks who look much worse when M. Night Shyamalan is behind the camera. He’s pretty good here as the requisite Dean Wormer.
Google is the place for Owen and Vince
The humor will probably not leave you in splints
But given their bag
After this gag
Your palate will not need a rinse
Rated PG-13, 119 Minutes
D: Shawn Levy
W: Vince Vaughn & Jared Stern
Genre: The selling of Vince Vaughn
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: VinceVaughnophiles
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Actual interns, I imagine
