Waiting... was just another crude modern day comedy set in a restaurant filled with mean-spirited, mostly obnoxious, employees who didn't seem to be happy unless they were rubbing their genitals in somebody's food, treating each other like shit, or being shallow. It was a hard-to-handle mess of a comedy anchored by an irritating lead performance by Ryan Reynolds and didn't deliver the kind of laughs a raunchy work-based comedy should have. However, it seems to have struck a chord with someone (or perhaps the screenplay cribbed inspiration from such a location) as there's been a mild influx of restaurants popping up whose shtick is to treat customers terribly while offering mediocre tasting meals.

My bad experience with the 2005 original made me more than a little bit hesitant to watch the direct-to-DVD follow-up Still Waiting... The main two reasons I decided to give the series another chance was simply because I was hoping for something more in line with what I expected from the first and because I happened to see it on sale for under two bucks. The results, though as by-the-book as they come, turn out to be more amusing than I'd like to admit with the mood of the flick falling in-line with how this sub-genre of off-colour comedy should be. Like its predecessor the script mines raunchiness (and senior discount riffing) for jokes but everything just didn't seem to have this "eff you, our movie is funny!" attitude that Waiting... did.

Dennis (John Michael Higgins) is the manager at a nearby Shenanigan's restaurant who is clinging onto the notion that his job is important and one day wants to be promoted to district manager despite the fact that he's still living at home with a sarcastic mother who considers him to be a huge failure. Business hasn't been the best since TaTa's Wing Shack (an obvious riff on the Hooters chain of eateries) has moved in next door and, upon being told he needs to pull in nine grand worth of business in a day in order to be promoted, he tells the staff that unless they reach the goal they'll be out of jobs as the restaurant will be closing down.

What follows is your typical group of ingrates, who are stuck in a job they don't really like, have to try and pull together to take on their competing neighbours and their skimpily clothed waitresses using any outrageous methods they can think of. There's also a mild romantic subplot between a waiter and his girlfriend who's left to work next door that, paired with the uninspired scenes set at TaTa's, slows down the pacing.

Another question I have is "where's the boobs?" If you're going to set half your movie in a setting where slutty waitresses are dominant, and have attractive girls playing them, you should be delivering the T&A we all crave. Sure, there are discussions about breasts but when all we're afforded is some exposed body double ones in the last fifteen minutes it's a sad day indeed.

Probably the best thing that Still Waiting... has going for it is a likeable cast. Familiar character actor Higgins holds things together decently in the lead but he's constantly being upstaged by those around him including Steve Howey as racist waiter Agnew, Rob Kerkovich as the constantly picked on cook with a lisp Mason, and Alanna Ubach as our borderline alcoholic and abrupt greeter. Ubach is just one of many who they've brought back from the original but she's the only one worthwhile as Chi McBride has the pointless task of being the voice of reason character and returning Rob Benedict, Luis Guzman and Andy Milonakis aren't given a lot to do.

Considering that Still Waiting... is written by the same person as the first (as well as being directed by that film's producer), I was pleasantly surprised it turned out to be an enjoyable 88 minutes. It didn't offer up anything really new and got a lot of mileage out of its actors but at least it didn't follow the lead of the original and spend most of its time treating everyone within it like something you'd wipe off the bottom of your shoe after accidentally stepping in it. I can't recommend you go out of your way to see this but if it happens to be on cable, or easily accessible on Netflix, then it's not a bad timewaster. (Chris Hartley, 1/9/11)

Directed By: Jeff Balis.
Written By: Rob McKittrick.

Starring: John Michael Higgins, Rob Benedict, Steve Howey, Rob Kerkovich.