The Internship

The Internship follows fired salesmen Billy McMahon (Vince Vaughn) and Nick Campbell (Owen Wilson) as they attempt to reinvent themselves by applying for internships at Google, with the film detailing the pair’s subsequent efforts at earning actual jobs at the infamous internet company. It’s clear immediately that The Internship benefits substantially from the palpable chemistry between Vaughn and Wilson, with their affable dynamic going a long way towards establishing a surprisingly (and compulsively) watchable atmosphere. The inclusion of several laugh-out-loud funny interludes perpetuates the movie’s engaging vibe, and it does, in the movie’s early stages, seem as though The Internship is going to top Wedding Crashers, Vaughn and Wilson’s first comedic pairing, in terms of entertainment value. It’s not until Billy and Nick arrive at Google that the film begins its sharp nosedive into mediocrity, as the movie, which is far-from-subtle in terms of its reverence for Google, subsequently places a consistent emphasis on elements of an aggressively conventional nature. One’s interest does, as a result, begin to wane considerably as the film plods into its increasingly predictable midsection, with the inclusion of hackneyed plot twists (eg Nick and Billy must whip their ragtag group members into shape, Billy is forced to contend with an obnoxious rival (Max Minghella’s Graham), etc) ensuring that the movie only grows more and more interminable in the buildup to its expectedly uplifting finale. And although the movie does boast a small handful of effective moments in its latter half, The Internship is ultimately as lazy and pointless (and overlong) a comedy that one can easily recall – which is a shame, really, given the promise of the setup and the strength of the central performances.

** out of ****