Actor Vince Vaughn (a libertarian Republican?) knows perfectly well we have a sub-par economy these days and has co-written, and stars in, The Internship (2013), about two watch salesmen whose company folds and thereby leaves the gents jobless.  Afterwards Billy (Vaughn) and Nick (Owen Wilson) decide to become unpaid interns for Google—oh, let us glorify Google; wall-to-wall product placement is here—in the hope of getting hired by the lucrative company.  The pair learn a thing or two about computers and how to sell the Internet while blithely taking the young interns who are their co-competitors out of their insulated digital world for a while (not invariably in ways I condone).

Shawn Levy directed, and it is an indubitably superior flick to Levy’s Date Night (2010).  Alas, to me it is not much funnier than Date Night but neither is it a total loss as comedic cinema.  Far from it.  The cast is fun, Vaughn and Wilson most of all—and pretty Rose Byrne and Tiya Sircar are on hand.  A few hokey bits pop up, and I regret that the Byrne character is such an easy lay for Nick, but the movie is good at thrusting us into the Contemporary Scene, consisting of young adult worries about employment no less than of computer apps.  It’s a genial piece with workmanlike directing, editing and cinematography behind it.  In addition, I’d call it . . . libertarian.

English: Vince Vaughn at CMJ Festival 2007 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)