My Review of "Career Opportunities"

Career Opportunities is a comedy that came out back in 1991. It's very unconventional but it's supposed to be a John Hughes movie. With his track record, I had to check it out. I was wondering why nobody really talks about this movie and now I kind of see why.

The movie starts out with the introduction to our main protagonist Jim. He's a pathological liar and I think this is supposed to be endearing but it comes off annoying right away. His lies are innocent enough because we can tell how far fetched they are. Still, he has the wrong people listening to him. He's especially idolized by some local kids. This has basically built him a reputation in his small town. Nobody really believes him.

At this point, I think this movie is going to the direction of the boy who cried wolf but it swerves off from there. Jim cannot hold onto a job for the life of him. He's in his mid 20s and his parents really want him out of the house. That's when his father gets him a job at the local Target. He's basically going to be a night janitor.

On the other end of the spectrum there's a local beauty named Josie. She's the daughter of a wealthy man. On the surface it would seem that she has everything going for her but there's more to it than that. Every opportunity there is for her to rebel she does it. Her father is a very overbearing man and she wants to get out of his control.

This leads her to to go the same Target that Jim has been hired to. At the local Target she looks like she wants to do a little shoplifting. The two of these characters will meet at night. They're going to be stuck together because the Target gets locked down until morning.

This could have been just as simple as that, but they had to add a villain element to this movie which honestly didn't really need to be there. There's also the overbearing father looking for his missing daughter aspect as well. That part of the movie was totally inconsequential as well. Even Jim's relationship with his father was kind of forgotten as the movie progressed.

The heart of this movie is actually the banter between Jim and Josie. I thought this was the highlight of the movie because it dives into their struggles and aspirations in life. What are their obstacles and what not. This could have been a good movie with just that alone. I think there was definitely a lot of studio interference with this because the other fluff that they added to this movie felt really unnecessary.

The beginning and end portion of this movie feel really tacked on. There are some serious plot holes because of these crazy additions. Some of the scenarios are so wildly absurd that they throw off the tone of the movie. The tone is all over the place. It's at times sweet and intimate but then it's like a cartoon. I understand why some of it turned out that way seeing as it's meant to be a comedy. Still there are more subtle ways of comedy than this. Especially when you have a lot of nuanced comedy sprinkled throughout the dialogue.

Overall, this is a movie that had a lot of potential. With a lot of editing this could be a good movie. I unfortunately didn't have as great a time with it as I was hoping. Still there are some bright sides to this movie with some of the banter and ideas. This movie is all over the place. I think you can stay away from this one and not miss much. I have to give this one a 4.5 out of 10.