Office Space (1999)
a review by Christian Pyle
Successful animator Mike Judge ("Beavis and Butthead," "King of the Hill") has written and directed his first live-action feature, "Office Space." It has more in common with the satiric realism of "King of the Hill" than the adolescent slacker humor of "Beavis." Judge's target is the mind-numbing, soul-killing cubicle culture of the 9-to-5 corporate world.
Peter Gibbons (Ron Livingston) hates his job and dreams of doing nothing at all. (Think of him as "Ferris Bueller, 10 years later.") He achieves his dream briefly when a hypnotherapist (Michael McShane) puts him in a state of perpetual relaxation. While he is slacking off, a couple of efficiency experts (John C. McGinley, Paul Willson) are surveying the employees to decide who to "downsize." They like Peter and promote him while firing two of Peter's hard-working friends (David Herman, Ajay Naidu). Peter encourages his buddies to rip off the company with a computer virus.
Meanwhile, Peter is dating Joanne (Jennifer Aniston), a waitress at Chotchkie's, one of those trendy bar-n-grills where the cubicle class gather. Joanne is also having problems with her job. She's required to wear at least fifteen "pieces of flair" (inane buttons and the like), and her manager insists that she should wear more than the minimum to show her "Chotchkie's spirit."
"Office Space" is effective in its details and has many wonderful moments of biting satire. However, it lacks a story that ties all those beautiful details together convincingly; in the middle, the characters seem to wander around in search of a plot.
The best performances in "Office Space" come from its supporting actors. Gary ("The Brady Bunch Movie") Cole is hilarious as Bill Lumbergh, Peter's boss. Lumbergh is a doofus who attempts to be casual as he leans against the edge of Peter's cubicle with a coffee mug as a prop, as if he just happened to drop by to chat, and asks in a grating monotone for Peter to work all weekend. Another great character is Milton, played by Stephen ("News Radio") Root, a mumbling nebbish who is constantly mistreated and shortchanged.
If you work in a cubicle, have eight bosses, or have ever had to justify your job to an efficiency expert, you'll especially enjoy "Office Space." And you'll laugh harder than everyone else.
Grade: B
© 1999 Christian L. Pyle
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews