Now Hiring

Synopsis: Joe Martin (Jason Sedillo) is unemployed and his wife Sarah is just about ready to leave him. He answera an ad for what he thinks is a kids’ party entertainer as a pretend superhero and bluffs and exaggerates his capacities. So he’s hired and given the moniker “Average Joe”. Then, you guessed it; they expect him to be the real thing.

Now Hiring is a film that requires some persistence. The first ten minutes or so will have you wondering if this isn’t just a bunch of cosplayers attempting their own version of a Dogme 95 film. The villains wear dodgy white face masks that make no sense and sometimes aren’t even on straight and the heroes’ costumes are so cheap it’s kind of embarrassing. But, and you don’t find this out until later, that’s kind of the point. The heroes you wish looked cooler are actually an underfunded secret arm of the city council; they’re not really making the big bucks. It’s not made very explicit mind you, and maybe I’m just leaping to conclusions, but it makes sense to me since the costumes get better later in the film, as do the action scenes. But truthfully, the promise of action isn’t what kept me watching Mark Cantu's film. The real selling point is the main character. Joe is a really engaging character and Jason Sedillo has a wonderful screen presence. He radiates “nice guy completely out of his depth” charm, as he tries to live up to the lies he’s told. And his spiky relationship with his sister-in-law is nicely done too. The domestic aspect of the film really works.

But other characters are under-served, or bafflingly ignored at key moments. Where someone with a particular superpower would come in handy, they don’t get involved. And a few early jokes that feel like set-ups fail to pay off.  Full credit though for inventing a hero called “The Nudist”. And what seems like a one-off gag gets a rewarding call-back. Though why that and not others left me puzzled.

The film is choppy as all hell, needed another pass on the script, a bit more money, and a tighter edit. The bones of a great film are there, and weirdly you get fairly satisfying character arcs despite feeling like the makers have skipped over scenes that would have made them work properly. It's odd. I suspect because I know the genre tropes I mentally filled in the blanks, but thinking about it now, some scenes come out of nowhere.

Even though it’s impossible to ignore the faults, Now Hiring is never less than fun. If you like superhero comedies, this is one to check out. I enjoyed it, and I want to see the promised sequel. Fingers crossed it happens.

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