A half-baked attempt to do for chain restaurants what Clerks did for convenience stores, Waiting tracks a day in the life of Shenaniganz, an unclean eatery staffed by an assortment of freaks, flirts and flashers. First-time filmmaker Rob McKittrick may have his own Jay and Silent Bob in the form of two wannabe-gangsta busboys, but he lacks Kevin Smith's ear for poetic profanity and only a handful of gags - like a pubes-in-the-gravy prank - rouse a reaction.
Still, McKittrick has clocked enough hours in the table-service trade to give the waiter-customer clashes a whiff of truth. Ryan Reynolds' irritatingly smug cradle-snatcher is offset by choice support from Anna Faris and Luis Guzman, while Justin Long's troubled twentysomething belongs to a more thoughtful film that isn't obsessed with genital contortion.
