‘Waiting’ Serves Its Wry Humor Up Fresh

Ken Liotti’s “The Waiting Game” offers a wry take on a group of aspiring actors working in a New York restaurant while waiting for that big break.

Ultimately, Liotti focuses more on the vicissitudes of romance than show biz, as a bartender, Lenny (Will Arnett), and a waitress, Andi (Terumi Mathews), as longtime friends, find themselves in denial over their mutual attraction.

The more forthright of the two, Andi tells Lenny she wouldn’t want to become involved with him because he’s the only man she half-way trusts.

As emotion clashes with reason between Lenny and Andi, Lenny breaks up with his live-in girlfriend (Debbon Ayer) and Andi has a fling with a rugged construction worker (Michael Raynor). In the meantime, their co-worker Dan (Dan Riordan) puts his pals through the agony of his pretentious one-man show and then he faces the humiliation of an audition that crashes when he’s told that his 14 1/2 shoe size indicates that he’s automatically wrong for the role.

Liotti manages to bring a freshness and humor to an oft-told tale. “The Waiting Game” serves as a good calling card for cast and crew, especially Raynor, Arnett, Mathews and Riordan and cinematographer Rich Eliano, whose use of the film’s Manhattan backdrop is graceful and unobtrusive.

* Unrated. Times guidelines: language, adult themes and situations.

‘The Waiting Game’

Will Arnett: Lenny

Terumi Mathews: Andi

Dan Riordan: Dan

Michael Raynor: Franco

A Seventh Art release. Writer-director Ken Liotti. Producers Mirjam Goldberg & Liotti. Cinematographer Rich Eliano. Editor Kirk LaVine. Music Jim Farmer. Costumes Claudia Hill. Production designer Sonya Gropman. Rona De Angelo. Running time: 1 hour, 21 minutes.

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