Yesterday, after I got home from voting in my town’s city council elections, I wanted to unwind with a tennis movie.  When I did a search for “tennis,” Tubi recommended that I watch The Promotion.

I don’t know why because there is no tennis in The Promotion.  No one plays a game or even talks about tennis in The Promotion.  Instead, the movie is about two men who work for a grocery store and who are both hoping to get promoted.  The narrator is Doug (Seann William Scott), who is married to Jen (Jenna Fischer), a nurse.  Doug wants to get promoted so that he and Jen can move into a new house and so that he can be the sole breadwinner.  Doug also has to get the promotion because he has already lied to Jen and told her that he got it.  Doug was feeling insecure because Jen’s boss, Dr. Timm (Bobby Cannavale) saves lives for a living while Doug just spends all day dealing with angry customers and the gang members who hang out in the store’s parking lot.  Doug’s rival for the promotion is Richard (John C. Reilly), a recovering drug addict who listens to self-help tapes.  Each of them tries to sabotage the other.  Doug tries to make Richard look stupid at a company retreat and Richard files a false injury report after Doug hits him with a bag of frozen tater tots.

I think the movie was trying to make a point about how desperate people are for status and money that they’ll do anything to get it but I didn’t care because I didn’t find Doug or Richard to be in any way likable and I didn’t want either one of them to get the promotion.  I would not shop at any store where they worked because grocery shopping is bad enough without having to deal with all of that extra drama.  Both Richard and Doug were terrible as assistant managers so as far I was concerned, neither one of them deserved to be promoted.  Jen should have left Doug for Dr. Timm.

Plus, there wasn’t any tennis.