A jaded for-hire-HR-terminator reappraises his life

Rating: 1/10 (26 April 2010)

Want to see a great film about an emotionally distant traveler who is forced by circumstances to transform himself? Rent "The Accidental Tourist." Want to see a Hollywood liberal straw man attack on corporate America laced with enough F-bombs and T&A to earn an "R" rating? Rent "Up in the Air." The film is a great alternative to Ambien if you're an insomniac. Unfortunately, I viewed it at 7PM, so I was forced to look for other things to do in my house as its non-plot unfolded. Reitman needs to repeat Drama 101: create some stakes, force the main character out of his comfort zone early and often. Ryan (George Clooney) is a smug professional doing a job that doesn't exist in reality: traveling around the country firing white collar workers whose bosses don't have the cojones to ax. Hello, Jason: if a company needs to reduce its overhead, it surely will NOT spend money outsourcing HR to a guy who travels first class. Now if Ryan had been fired in the first 15 minutes, that would have created some stakes and forced him off the track, but that doesn't happen. Instead, Ryan falls into a road "relationship" that is every over-40 male's fantasy: a beautiful fellow traveler named Alex (Vera Farmiga)falls for Ryan's cheesy pickup line in a hotel bar and she becomes his best friend with benefits. The other female character is an overly earnest newbie on the corporate team: Natalie (Anne Kendrick)who is inexplicably taken on the road by Ryan after he demolishes her attempt to do his job in a computer chat environment. Why she isn't pink slipped for incompetence is never explained, except that the thin plot needs her for later developments. Eventually there is an O. Henry style plot twist, but it is too little too late to save this stinker of a movie. I wonder when George Clooney last flew commercial air as opposed to a corporate Gulstream or Lear jet? The alleged perks he experiences would not convince me to board the series of regional jets he'd have to use to go between Witchita, Kansas City, St. Louis and Milwaukee.