“Outside Sales” proves that you can make anything funny with the right know how because a comedy about a bunch of guys selling payroll services to employers isn’t exactly strapped with a neon sign reading LOADS OF LAUGHS HERE! But thanks to a talented filmmaker with a great sense of comic timing and an amazing cast who obviously were having a blast with the material, “Outside Sales” is jam packed with laughs.
In “Outside Sales,” romance in the work place leads to comedy…and tragedy…as we’re introduced to an office full of colorful salespeople with our focus on one Paul Wells. Paul used to be the sales rockstar of the office, but when his new boss starts screwing his wife, Paul loses his nerve. The salesman inside him withers away. If he can close a deal, he can’t do it without trembling, stuttering and sweating all the way through his pitch. Paul is a complete mess.
Enter Dagny Green, the hot new kid on the sales block. Paul’s attraction to her invigorates him, he feels that she may be his turnaround point for him to reclaim his balls…until he discovers that she’s been brought in as his potential replacement. And so the competition begins between Paul and Dagny, two people who should be lovers, but are bitter enemies instead as they fight over the same job.
“Outside Sales” is solid comedy right out of the gate as we’re lowered into Paul’s ridiculously pathetic world, watching him not only have to work for the guy who’s nailing his ex-wife, but also making the extraordinarily bad decision to live across the street from them at a neighbor’s house who take Paul in as their son, setting him up in his own little room and bunk bed. It’s so sad you gotta laugh and the comically charged characters surrounding Paul, making his life even more of a living nightmare, keep the laughs coming fast and furious. These characters include, but are not limited to, Paul’s officemates who cover the spectrum of workplace jackassery. Scene by scene, beat by beat, the first half of this movie keeps mining the comedy gold.
Yes, I said it.
“Outside Sales” does slow down a bit as the relationship between Paul and Dagny builds. This doesn’t mean the film loses any of its charm, we just shift gears into more of the romantic than the comedy. All in all, it’s a perfect blend. This is a brick solid movie with a tremendous cast, including filmmaker Blayne Weaver as Paul’s obnoxious boss. It’s like the “Caddyshack” of outside sales movies.
