Product: Office Space (1999)
Rating: 5.0
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Anyone who has ever worked in an office environment with at least a medium-sixed company can relate to this fantastic film. One wonders why Mike Judge does not direct more. He's an enormous talent and this movie is dead on target. Virtually anyone who has work in an office can identify with out of control birthday celebrations, the joy of working in a cubicle, the big bosses creeping around, and the unGodly threat of consultants.I remember my own meeting with a consultant. Talk about bubble-brained. I'd love to get paid for a job like that. And oh..the timesheet thing and multiple job codes. I swear Judge must have visited the place where I USED to work! Anyway we've got Peter Gibbons (Ron Livingston) working to update Y2K software for the company he works for. He hates it...he's bored with it...and his bosses keep hounding him for TPS reports. One day he just decides to not show up for work. He's not quitting..he just isn't going to go anymore. He comes in finally to pickup his address book and has his meetings with the consultants played marvelously by John C. McGinley and Paul Stewart as the "Bobs".Peter explains how he comes in late and only does about 15 minutes of real work in a week. The Consultants immediately see him as management material and want to promote him! Classic! Richard Riehle as Tom Smykowski has a classic meltdown when he meets with the consultants screaming, "I HAVE PEOPLE SKILLS...I'M GOOD WITH PEOPLE!!! WHAT THE HELL'S THE MATTER WITH YOU PEOPLE!" Gary Cole steals the show as smarmy, do-nothing boss Bill Lumbergh whose shallow politeness makes you just want to poke his eyes out. When Peter finds out two of his buddies are going to be laid off they hatch a plot to infect the accounting software with a virus and move money into an account they've opened.Jennifer Aniston is Joanna who has her own work problems working for one of those generic bar & grill type restaurants and Steven Root is tremendous as the sheepish, squirrely Milton who was supposed to have been laid off five years earlier but was never told.Judge obviously has a great grasp of the office environment and his biting satire of dealing with the firing of employees ought to serve as a swift kick in the butt for all greedy corporate upper management. Tremendous film that only gets funnier everytime you see it.