Waffle Street is a slice of life with too much syrup and not enough sustenance.
A Wall Street-type loses his job at a financial firm – doesn’t just lose it actually, gets fired and scapegoated for the firm’s shady dealings, of which he is also guilty. Wanting to redeem himself by doing “honest work” for a while, his fancy suit and attache case get his 
resume thrown out of places from carpet fitters to mechanics. Only a chicken and waffle restaurant will take him, where he’ll fall under the tutelage and benevolence of grill man Danny Glover, who insists on being called Waffle Daddy.
This career downgrade means he and his wife have to sell their nice cars and sprawling home just as they are expecting a baby. But driving a Honda and owning a bungalow don’t elicit a whole lot of sympathy. The financial crisis that this dude helped create had far more dire consequences for millions of people.
This “riches to rags” tale is apparently based on a true story, but the movie feels the furthest thing from authentic. Low budget, bad acting, and sub-par script are all at play. This just doesn’t ring true. The voice overs, however, are unforgivable, and inspire almost as much nausea as the disgusting clogged toilet scene that for some reason was necessary to show in gory detail.
Since this is a rich white dude’s story, he of course isn’t satisfied with being a lowly server for long. Instead, he’s punching his time card with the ambition to soon open up his own franchise. And don’t worry – if the path isn’t as straight-forward as he thinks, he’s got a rich white father and a rich white grandfather both prepared to step in with wads of cash at a moment’s notice – but only if he’ll agree to take some time off soon. Because it turns out that working as if you’re poor and your life and family depend on it is really hard. It’s just too bad the film doesn’t know enough to be self-conscious about this.
ASSHOLES WATCHING MOVIES 
I couldn’t believe this was based on a true story. Not because it’s unbelieveable, but because it’s so generic, why bother with the true story angle? If they had cobbled several stories together, or used a bit of creative licence, it probably would have been more entertaining. Instead all I was left with were whiny voiceovers from a self-entitled guy who directly contributed to the 2008 collapse, and I certainly didn’t care to see pictures of the real guy and his family at the end. Self-indulgent from start to finish.
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AT least we could be reassured that it all turned out okay for him. He didn’t lose his home or really have any consequences at all. And isn’t that nice?
Also great: zero remorse.
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Oh, and that paternal “keeping in touch with the poor folks I met” thing at the end. Fuck me.
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Oy, sounds awful! I hadn’t heard of it but now I know not to see it;).
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Interesting to hear the movie screws up its own message, though I guess that happens a lot with Hollywood movies when dealing with poverty. You’d think it wouldn’t be so hard when they’re written by struggling screenplay writers, but I guess out of touch producers can always be counted on to screw it up.
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Oh for sure, there can be so many re-writes it might be practically unrecognizable to the person who wrote it.
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Actually spotted this on Netflix over the weekend while browsing (I probably spend most of my time on Netflix browsing!) and thought “waffles!”
I’ll remove from my list…
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I know, the browsing kills me!
We have 2 categories here – Netflix & chill is for all movies found on Netflix. What to watch on Netflix is the stuff we actually recommend 😉
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Deep sigh. And chicken and waffles rears its head again. (People have told me that it’s “the bomb”, but I just don’t get it.)
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I’m not absolutely sure, but I think this may be the movie version of a book a colleague of mine read about a year ago. Apparently the reviews were good, but my colleague hated it and said the author was utterly condescending about everyone around him. It sounds like the movie might be rather similar.
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Condescending is an excellent word, especially for the end of the movie where he keeps in touch with all the poor “friends” he made. Blech.
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I think I’ll skip this story–both book and movie versions. 🙂
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