WAITING . . . By Alicia Potter

93 MINUTES| FLAGSHIP+ sHOWCASE

Writer-director Rob McKittrick’s agonizing debut attempts a Clerks-meets-Slackers comedy about the young and restless wait staff of an Applebee’s-style restaurant. Mopey Dean (Justin Long) dithers over a promotion, while asshole-and-proud-of-it Monty (Ryan Reynolds) trolls for jailbait and spews an excruciatingly overwritten stream of sarcasm. The requisite kitchen antics expose the vengeful side of food service (pubic hair as "sprouts"! dandruff as "sea salt"!) and, more originally, a tiresome prank featuring an origami-like twisting of the scrotum. Plodding and humorless, the film strains for a ribald edge but instead achieves an uncommon distinction: it’s homophobic, racist, misogynist, and misanthropic all at once. As a hazed trainee, John Francis Daley (all grown up from Freaks and Geeks) lets loose a cathartic rant, but it’s not worth waiting a torturous 80 minutes. Too bad you can’t send this overcooked crap back.