If you’ve ever worked in a mind-numbing job with 8 bosses above you, all of whom feel it necessary to reprimand you for the same insignificant mistake, you’ll love Office Space. Following up his successful Beavis & ButtHead Do America film and King of the Hill TV series, Mike Judge moves into live action with this sometimes brain dead, but frequently hilarious movie.
Even though this movie features live actors, the inspiration comes from Judge’s series of animated “Milton” shorts that were featured on Saturday Night Live. Milton, in the cartoons, was a mousy office worker with no self-esteem who was continually told to move his desk by his superiors, while he muttered under his breath that he would “burn the building down” to retaliate. Milton appears in Office Space — played by Stephen Root — but is no longer the focus of attention.
The plot now centers around Peter Gibbons (Rob Livingston), an office worker for a banking software company. He hates his job with a passion. His feelings are shared by his friends Michael Bolton (David Herman) and Samir (Ajay Naidu) and, together, they plot to steal from the company and retire. Their method of stealing? They program an accounting program to deposit the pennies that are rounded off of calculations into an account they’ve set up.
The plot is threadbare, but the opportunities it provides the movie to target office supervisors and job situations are priceless. In one bit, the guys get to vent their frustrations on the oft-jammed office copier by taking it outside and beating it to death in a Tarantino-style segment. The movie goes to great lengths to make sure that nothing in an office environment escapes its wrath. From annoying receptionists to clueless efficiency consultants, this movie covers all the bases.
Tacked on as sort of an afterthought is a relationship between Peter and a waitress named Joanna (Jennifer Aniston). It doesn’t add much to the film, except an excuse to include Aniston’s name to the marquee. Removing her from the movie wouldn’t have affected anything but its length. Although, her character does have a few choice words about chain restaurants like T.G.I. Fridays.
Overall, Office Space is a hilarious movie that doesn’t attempt to be anything more than a live action cartoon. Since it doesn’t set the audience up to expect any more than it delivers, it works perfectly.
4.0 out of 5.0 stars
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