The Promotion

Synopsis: At 33, Doug Stauber is ready for a promotion. He's married, wants to buy a house, and is assistant manager at a Chicago supermarket that's building a new store in his neighborhood. His boss tells him he's a shoo-in to manage the new store, then, a rival appears - Richard Wehlner, transferred from Canada. Richard has a deeper resume than Doug, is really nice, has a wife and daughter, and wants the promotion to manager too. How should Doug behave toward Richard - as a friend, a colleague, a competitor, or an enemy? Richard, it seems, has demons and a past, but with the help of motivational tapes, he's resolved to succeed. Corporate and personal tests await the two men.
Genre: Comedy
Director(s): Steve Conrad
Production: Weinstein Company
 
IMDB:
5.7
Metacritic:
51
Rotten Tomatoes:
53%
R
Year:
2008
86 min
$362,531
315 Views


Hi. I'm Doug Stauber.

I'm an assistant manager

at Donaldson's Grocery...

where customers come first-

even customers who are nuts.

- Mr. Stauber.

- Can I help you?

This guy had some complaint

about the cracker Teddy Grahams...

a honey graham snack.

- Okay.

- He spoke some other kind oflanguage.

"Lerhman torsh. "

That's not Spanish, bro.

I don't know what that is.

Okay, "Lerhman. "

Let's go. Sorry.

Oh, no.

Lerhman, man,

I don't know, Lerhman. I don't-

- Holy sh*t!

- At Donaldson's...

the assistant manager

deals with customer complaints.

What the hell?

It's myjob to keep a lid on this place.

It's kind ofhard.

I mean, it's not like I have a crack staff.

Outside, we have a gang problem. And we

have two 14-year-old security guards...

who stand as far away from the store

as they possibly can.

And at the end of the day,

I get reviews from customers...

whose feedback is important to us.

I returned to the lot from the

grocery and found three black guys...

sitting on my car eating snacks.

They finally left, but called me

names and words like "tasty"...

and "lick"and "titties. "

I have to turn these cards

over to our actual manager...

who's usually on his way back

from a movie.

- What's up?

- Hey.

- New cards?

- Yeah.

Good ones?

That's good.

"Lick. " "Titties. "

I'm gonna take off.

So myjob has challenges.

So I'm not smiling here

because I'm actually happy.

I'm smiling because

I'm pretty sure my manager-

who probably is actually happy-

expected me to...

and I want to advance

and have a good career.

I'm supporting the orbital bone

with my right hand...

and the other hand

is right in her chest cavity, you know?

I'm manually massaging her heart now.

I thought she was going to die.

- How'd you get her back?

- Instinct.

- Hey, Jen.

- Hey, Doug. You remember Mark Timms.

- Yeah. Hi.

- Hi.

We were just talking about how Mark

saved a two-year-old girl's life.

Good job.

- Oh. Tell Mark about "Teddy Grahams. "

- That's all right.

- It's hilarious.

- What?

- This Teddy Grahams "snack slap" thing.

- Oh, snack slap?

- He got in this little slap fight.

- What happened? Tell me.

- Tell him.

- That's ok- No.

No, come on, man.

I want to know. Come on, guy.

And I'm asked to share my graham cracker

slap stories with my wife's boss...

- who never remembers my name.

- All right.

And my name's on my shirt. Right side.

Just the first name though. I tried to put

"Mr. Stauber"on it, but I got reprimanded.

Big deal. He saved an infant.

That's great.

- If I had infant-saving training,

I could probably do it. - Okay.

Some days, I didn't think

anyone would call me "mister. "

I'djust be "Doug"... for good.

You're a shoo-in, dude.

- Seriously?

- Seriously.

Hey, do you know where the expression

"shoo-in" comes from?

No.

The Romans used to-

I'm the shoo-in- the leading shoo-in.

Totally.

- Oh, you're the leading shoo-in.

- Yeah, totally.

Come here, you sweaty bastard.

You sweaty shoo-in.

- I'm really sweaty.

- I don't care. Come here.

Oh, Jesus! You stink.

- I'll take a shower.

- It's okay.

- Hey, guy, can you just give us a break?

One night?

My partner's coming over.

- I'm supposed to have this piece prepared.

- Man, we're trying to...

have dinner.

I thought you were makin'out. "All sweaty. "

Compromise. I'll do scales.

- Is it still for sale?

- Yeah.

We should go get that house. This week.

Because I'm gonna get that job,

and I feel really good about things.

Me too.

Maybe we should wait though.

I'm a shoo-in. And someone's

gonna snag that house. Let's do it.

- Shoo-in?

- Yeah.

All right. Let's do it.

It was right there, what we worked for.

Then this guy

comes down from Canada.

#Every day I'm gonna strut that stuff #

# When the music's loud

I can't get enough #

#Singin' hi, singin' hi #

# Come on, feet

Teach yourself to move #

#Hey #

#People shufflin'

up and down again #

# Unhappy faces

ain't gonna get you in #

#Singin' hi, singin' hi #

# Come on, people

Teach yourself to move #

#Hey, yeah #

#Hey, all right #

#Spread the news

We're gonna have some fun #

#Let it go

Movin'son of a gun #

#Singin' hi, singin' hi #

# Come on, feet

We was born to move #

- #Hey, yeah ##

Got the loading dock right over there.

- That's for blue stock only.

- Okay.

- That gets logged in right away.

- Blue stock.

And if it's before 8:15 in the morning,

you've got to do it.

- Move it over right up there to that first pallet.

- Right.

This way, as soon as it goes back,

it's rotated back to the first-

Wejust moved.

My wife was transferred, so now I'm here.

Richard Wehlner, from Quebec.

And that's pretty much where it all started-

somejoker blowing down

from Canada...

from a sister company

I didn't even know we had.

Nice location.

Yeah.

- It's a Plus?

- What's that?

- It's gonna be full size?

- Full size.

This place will draw too.

There's not another grocery till Western.

I'm gonna put in for it,

full manager.

Yeah, me too.

- So, okay. See you later.

- Yep. See you later.

Eh, gimme five.

Erickson's is our sister company.

Okay.

Yeah, they're all over Canada.

Wehlner's got, like, six years in up there.

But I'm still the shoo-in, right?

I don't know.

Wehlner's kind of a wild card.

His work history transfers clean, so-

I don't know about

this shoo-in business.

So there's a microchip on the right

anterior wheel that has a sensor in it...

and if it detects an obstacle,

it will engage the self-braking mechanism.

So no more scratched

door small claims, right?

All right, here we go.

I had to tell her I wasn't a shoo-in...

- and that maybe the house was out for now.

- Whoa!

That's no way to play the banjo.

- I'm doing the best I can.

- No, you're not. Because you don't love me.

- I love you intensely.

- Then show me...

- by playing better banjo.

- Okay.

Then show me... sexually.

Dream or real?

- Real.

- Oh, my God.

Chapter Two.

We'll learn the importance

of recognizing opportunities...

to stand out at work

and to steer clear of trouble.

We'll also learn that success

does not come to the timid...

but to those like-

Richard Wehlner-

Who go out and make things happen.

It's nice when

you bring your daughter's Brownie troupe...

in for cupcakes

and they learn the word "cock. "

- Thanks, Donaldson's.

- F***.

- Hey. Any good?

- No.

- Well, what's the problem? We'll work on it as a team.

- The box is on the lot.

- The lot's so f***in' nuts.

- Well, what's so f'ing nuts about it?

- It's just crazy. Lot detail means bad cards.

- Oh.

Scott, why is the board here?

Oh, they wanna run stock for the new Plus

store in Augusta. They want a stock list.

Great. I'm eager to meet them.

I'm eager to... too.

...from Donaldson's, the

champion of excellence.

Whether it's Monday morning muffins

or a pie for Sunday's supper-

Hey. Those cutters are still out there.

- Well, I'm on stacking.

- Yeah, well, I'd go, but I gotta get my car washed.

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Submitted on August 05, 2018

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    "The Promotion" Scripts.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 5 Nov. 2024. <https://www.scripts.com/script/the_promotion_16309>.

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