John C Reilly: 5 Awesome Performances & 5 That Sucked

2. Richard Wehlner - The Promotion (2008)

There should be a pretty firm guideline in all agent offices in Hollywood: never sign on to anything Seann William Scott says yes to. Sadly, Reilly didn't heed that message and signed on for this tale of two warring greengrocers seeking the American Dream of their own supermarket to manage.

One is a recovering drug addict from a biker gang, and the other a happily married man with a conscience who feels discomfort at the underhand tactics of their competition. Curiously, Reilly is the latter, making for an understated performance from Scott: it's almost like someone put their names on the wrong dressing rooms on day one and nobody had the heart to tell them.

The film again suffers something of an identity crisis - it sounds like it should be a black slapstick (you can almost imagine it as a smarter Ealing comedy), but it pushes nothing far enough, and it is hamstrung horribly by the casting issue that makes the "bad guy" much more likeable than the supposedly sympathetic one.