In 2o13’s The Internship, Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn play Nick and Billy, two longtime salesman who, having lost their jobs, apply for an internship at Google.  Despite there not being any logical reason for either one of them to be given a spot, Nick and Billy are accepted.  Suddenly, these two middle-aged guys who know next to nothing about programming or the Internet find themselves at the Google campus.  Teaming up with a group of much younger outcasts (albeit very smart outcasts), Nick and Billy compete for a job at Google.

(Personally, the only job I would want at Google would be designing the Google Doodle.)

At first, no one is happy about having to work with Nick and Billy.  Nick and Billy are adults, the type who still use landline phones and wonder why the kids are so obsessed with looking at a little screen.  They’re loud.  They make crude jokes and they don’t understand stuff like safe spaces.  They fall for obvious pranks, like being sent to a college campus to track down “Professor Charles Xavier.”  This leads to them both getting knocked out by a bald man in a wheelchair.  “Professor Xavier’s a total dick!” Billy gasps.

Eventually, though, Nick and Billy start to win everyone over.  Their old school competitiveness comes in handy during a game of Quidditch.  They know how to talk to women at bars.  They know how to appeal to someone running an old-fashioned business.  But will that be enough to win them a job at Google?

Back when the Onion was funny, one of their best headlines was ‘The Internship’ Poised To Be Biggest Comedy Of 2005!  The joke, of course, was that the film was coming out in 2013.  The headline worked because it was true.  The film felt very much out-of-place in the world of 2013.  The majority of the film’s humor came from Nick and Billy not really knowing what Google was but, by 2013, even the most cranky of boomer grandparents were using Google to search for their Facebook password.  Nick and Billy were not boomers.  They may have been older than the other interns but still, it’s hard to believe that two guys in their mid-40s would be that clueless about everything from the Internet to the identity of Charles Xavier.  I mean, the X-Men movies were kind of a big deal.

The other thig that dated the film was its portrayal of Google as essentially just being a fun playground full of nerdy prodigies who just needed someone to teach them how to party.  By 2013, everyone knew that Google was a powerful and somewhat intimidating company.  Indeed, at its weakest, the film basically feels like a 2-hour commercial for Google.  Never mind that, by 2013, Google was so big and omnipresent that it really didn’t need to advertise.

So, with all that in mind, why do I find myself watching this movie whenever I happen to come across it?  First off, as uneven as the movie is, it is funny.  The Quidditch scene did make me laugh.  John Goodman’s and Will Ferrell’s unhinged cameos made me laugh, almost despite myself.  The scene where Nick and Billy annoy the group by misinterpreting what is meant by “coding” made me laugh, if just because of how bizarrely enthusiastic Nick and Billy were when they convinced themselves that their internship director was a Jeff Goldblum fan.  (It makes no sense but just go with it.)  Most importantly, Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn made me laugh.  There was absolutely no way to make it plausible that Nick and Billy would be that clueless about technology but Wilson and Vaughn really threw themselves into their roles and, as a result, I’m always willing to forgive some of the film’s missteps.  The mix of Vaughn’s overage frat boy goofiness and Wilson’s mellow spaciness always makes me laugh more than it probably should.  They’re a good comedic team and they’re both just so damn earnest in this movie that it works a lot better than it really should.  In the end, you do find yourself rooting for them.  They’re two hard-workers who like to play hard and who have the courage to reinvent themselves.  What’s more American than that?

(Even more importantly, when you come across the film on cable, you’re free to pretend that it actually came out in 2005, back when the plot would have actually made more sense.)

If any film lives up to the term guilty pleasure, it’s The Internship.

Previous Guilty Pleasures

1. Half-Baked
2. Save The Last Dance
3. Every Rose Has Its Thorns
4. The Jeremy Kyle Show
5. Invasion USA
6. The Golden Child
7. Final Destination 2
8. Paparazzi
9. The Principal
10. The Substitute
11. Terror In The Family
12. Pandorum
13. Lambada
14. Fear
15. Cocktail
16. Keep Off The Grass
17. Girls, Girls, Girls
18. Class
19. Tart
20. King Kong vs. Godzilla
21. Hawk the Slayer
22. Battle Beyond the Stars
23. Meridian
24. Walk of Shame
25. From Justin To Kelly
26. Project Greenlight
27. Sex Decoy: Love Stings
28. Swimfan
29. On the Line
30. Wolfen
31. Hail Caesar!
32. It’s So Cold In The D
33. In the Mix
34. Healed By Grace
35. Valley of the Dolls
36. The Legend of Billie Jean
37. Death Wish
38. Shipping Wars
39. Ghost Whisperer
40. Parking Wars
41. The Dead Are After Me
42. Harper’s Island
43. The Resurrection of Gavin Stone
44. Paranormal State
45. Utopia
46. Bar Rescue
47. The Powers of Matthew Star
48. Spiker
49. Heavenly Bodies
50. Maid in Manhattan
51. Rage and Honor
52. Saved By The Bell 3. 21 “No Hope With Dope”
53. Happy Gilmore
54. Solarbabies
55. The Dawn of Correction
56. Once You Understand
57. The Voyeurs 
58. Robot Jox
59. Teen Wolf
60. The Running Man
61. Double Dragon
62. Backtrack
63. Julie and Jack
64. Karate Warrior
65. Invaders From Mars
66. Cloverfield
67. Aerobicide 
68. Blood Harvest
69. Shocking Dark
70. Face The Truth
71. Submerged
72. The Canyons
73. Days of Thunder
74. Van Helsing
75. The Night Comes for Us
76. Code of Silence
77. Captain Ron
78. Armageddon
79. Kate’s Secret
80. Point Break
81. The Replacements
82. The Shadow
83. Meteor
84. Last Action Hero
85. Attack of the Killer Tomatoes
86. The Horror at 37,000 Feet
87. The ‘Burbs
88. Lifeforce
89. Highschool of the Dead
90. Ice Station Zebra
91. No One Lives
92. Brewster’s Millions
93. Porky’s
94. Revenge of the Nerds
95. The Delta Force
96. The Hidden
97. Roller Boogie
98. Raw Deal
99. Death Merchant Series
100. Ski Patrol
101. The Executioner Series
102. The Destroyer Series
103. Private Teacher
104. The Parker Series
105. Ramba
106. The Troubles of Janice
107. Ironwood
108. Interspecies Reviewers
109. SST — Death Flight
110. Undercover Brother
111. Out for Justice
112. Food Wars!
113. Cherry
114. Death Race
115. The Beast Within
116. Girl Series
117. Gone in 60 Seconds
118. Swordfish
119. Marked For Death