A lot has been made of how good this movie is considering its budget. The fact is, people who go to the theater, buy dvds or download movies generally don't give a flying *beep* about the budget. A movie, like wine or a blow job, is either good or it isn't.
The Waiter, now that the technical glitches of the first edit have been worked out, is a damn good movie. It is well-scripted, well-shot, and very well directed. Jason cast this movie superbly, and largely against type (lantern-jawed legendary tough guy Robert Z'Dar is introspective and gentle in this), then trusted his actors (of which I was one) to follow their instincts, no matter how perverse.
Equally significant is the fact that The Waiter cannot be cubby-holed into some reeking, art-smothering genre trashcan like most movies--particularly high-dollar monstrosities with so much money at stake that the Svengalis behind them homogenize and process and categorize them like cat food. Viewers who see The Waiter for the way-cool weaponry and spurting gore (of which there is enough to satisfy the most psychotic gun nut) may well pick up on some of the deeper themes; the dire consequences of neo-mammonism for example; or they may not. Vice-versa for Pelligrino-swilling geeks who see it because it is a cerebral film. It doesn't matter. Whatever they get out of The Waiter, they won't soon forget it. If I had one of the many guns in The Waiter to my head and had to categorize this movie or die, I'd call it arthousenoireromanticpropogandadasplatteranimepicblockbusterporn. It's a popcorn movie with balls.
Most telling of all is that no less a personage than the legendary Charles Durning, as fine an actor as ever graced a screen or a stage, agreed to do this movie for practically nothing; even though he cannot abide cinematic violence, having seen enough of the real thing in WWII. He did this movie because he saw through the blood and guts and realized it was a hell of a story. See this when it comes to a theater near you or the video store down the block. Tell others to see it. The Waiter works for tips.
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