Review: ‘Management’ Should Go Back to School

I went to see Management because Steve Zahn is in it, and I’ll see him in anything. Steve Zahn turns out to be pretty much the only reason to see Management, and then only if you’re a big Steve Zahn fan, and then only if there’s nothing else to do, because even his always-fun appearance cannot rescue this picture, ostensibly an arthouse vehicle for Jennifer Aniston. (And if you needed any more proof that people don’t go to see Jennifer Aniston in a movie but go to see movies that just happen to have Jennifer Aniston in them, Management is Exhibit A. This weekend, the Aniston picture made only a little more money than Taken, which was released 16 weeks ago and is now available on DVD.)

Zahn plays a slacker (Yeah, what else is new, but he’s so good at it!) wasting away as the night manager at his parents’ rural motel. Aniston sells motel owners the painted-in-bulk art you find in motel rooms. For reasons that are never made clear, she doesn’t try to sell Zahn and his parents any art. She’s in the tiny town to sell to someone else — which made me wonder… (more…)