Billy (Vince Vaughn) and Nick (Owen Wilson) are a couple of old school salesmen and after several years hawking various wares they’re latest company has gone out of business leaving them looking for options. Billy’s house is foreclosed on and his longtime girlfriend leaves him. Nick ends up working for his sister’s boyfriend (Will Ferrell) at a mattress shop. Their skills are limited to smiles and witty wordplay and they don’t own a computer, don’t know what a computer “bug” is and instead of “online” Billy refers to it as “getting on the line”.
So what do they do? That’s right, they weasel their way into internships at Google where all you need is about three months to master HTML5, C++ and Google tech support. As much as the film plays like a commercial for how great it is to work on Google’s Mountain View campus, it appears they are pretty lax when it comes to work standards and the individuals they offer full-time positions. Good news for all of us, only the minimum skill sets are required to work at “the Garden of Eden” of companies as Nick refers to it at first sight.
The Internship is the latest film from Shawn Levy (Real Steel, Night at the Museum) and with the teaming of Vaughn and Wilson it will clearly find comparisons with the duo’s 2005 success, Wedding Crashers and the comparison is apt in the same way a fake Rolex is no worse than the real thing.
Despite an interesting concept and a couple of mild laughs, The Internship is a cheap knock-off co-written by Vaughn and Jared Stern (Mr. Popper’s Penguins, Wreck-It Ralph) and when the film isn’t kissing Google’s ass, it relies so heavily on Vaughn’s ability to talk, and talk, and talk all you want to do is tell him to shut up. Vaughn’s constant stream of babbling was once entertaining, now it’s just annoying and the supporting cast does no better.
Once their internship begins, Billy and Nick are teamed with a group of underdog misfits, as is commonplace for these bootstrap comedies, and for the most part they’re relatively harmless, though Josh Brener‘s uncomfortable “yo, yo, yo-ing” during the film’s opening moments established yet another character that could have met an untimely death and I wouldn’t have minded one bit. But that’s the way these kind of teams are put together — Stuart (Dylan O’Brien) is too cool, the home schooled (and I’m assuming abused?) Yo-Yo (Tobit Raphael) lacks confidence and Neha (Tiya Sircar) is the bubbly wannabe. All of them will find their way eventually and, of course, Billy and Nick will be their guides.
On the opposite end of the harmless spectrum the real thorn in this film’s side is Max Minghella whom I realize is here to serve as the “villain” of the piece, playing the super smart ying to Nick and Billy’s yang, but the character is so poorly written and overacted he may as well be wearing an eye patch and stand in the corner, gazing while laughing maniacally. Granted, his constant berating of a fellow team member for being overweight pretty much serves this purpose, but this seems to suggest the only thing Minghella is good for is playing the whiny geek that didn’t get the big job at the fancy tech company. Speaking of which, I wonder if there would be a disruption in the space-time continuum if his characters from The Social Network and this film were to meet.
Otherwise, Rose Byrne fills in as Nick’s love interest, Rob Riggle is a sleazy motorized scooter salesman and Aasif Mandvi plays the over-bearing Google exec who’s only hard on you because he wants to see you do your best.
What was really strange to me was how Wilson and Vaughn don’t really seem to be playing characters as much as they seem to be playing themselves, playing characters. It’s as if they are the same characters from Wedding Crashers and instead of crashing weddings, John and Jeremy have now decided to crash Google, the greatest place to work in the world!
The Internship thrives on selling “Googliness”, a seemingly grand measure all of us must find within ourselves. To work at Google is not only a privilege, it’s a way to better oneself. From the sandy outdoor volleyball courts to the trials and tribulations of a Quidditch match to help determine your worth to the Holy Grail of companies is on display.
Near the end of the film an employee (of course I don’t want to spoil their identity) insists the work that goes on at Google “makes people’s lives better.” The film attempts to counter this with forced moments where we all must simply unplug and connect with other people, but in the end, if we aren’t giving over every aspect of our lives and businesses to the search engine grown into the ULTIMATE LIFE CHANGER, then are our lives really worth living at all? What’s the alternative? Taking advantage of and selling Hovarounds to senior citizens? According to The Internship… yes.
