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Movie Review:Office Space 98

Posted by JonKatz from the Geek-Screens-Movie-Review dept.
Mike Judge's new movie "Office Space" is theoretically a comedy. But it's also a frontal assault on life in the hi-tech workplace. It's not a great movie, but a fun tale about a band of disaffected geeks who fight back against a lughead boss in soulless corporation.

"Office Space" is a joyous frontal assault on the modern workplace - especially the computer part of same -- from Mike Judge, the creator of the late, much lamented "Beavis & Butt-head" and "King of the Hill."

It's also yet another in a lengthening string of movies centered on nerd and geek life.

"Office Space" is nowhere near close to being a great movie, but strangely is no less fun for that. Anybody who has endured or survived work as a low-level functionary in a high-tech modern corporation ought to go see this movie, preferably accompanied by colleagues and fellow office dwellers.

Ron Livingston plays Peter, a programmer who works in a suffocating cubicle working on updating Y2K code for banks. His company is aptly named "Initech," and it's never precisely clear what it does. His friends Michael (David Herman) and Samir (Ajay Naidu) are equally miserable but more accepting.

Peter hates every single thing about his job, including his oily bosses, so much that he simply stops going, aided in this by the sudden collapse by heart attack of a hypno-therapist at the very moment he was instructing Peter to feel better about things.

As the therapist is carted off to the hospital, Peter is frozen in a state of well being. He realizes his true ambition, which is to do nothing much.

So he comes in when and if he feels like it. He ignores his bosses demands. He knocks down his cubicle so he can see the view outside. He throws fish entrails around the office, and otherwise screws up so brazenly and publicly that he is, of course immediately promoted by his savagely portrayed middle-management martinet boss, Bill Lumbergh (Gary Cole.)

Peter is snapped out of his reverie when his admittedly and self-described geek buddies (shamelessly stereotyped as socially awkward, angry and timid) get laid off. They collectively decide to seek revenge by writing a software program that siphons off pennies from bank customers in such small amounts that they're sure nobody will eever notice the theft of hundreds of thousands of dollars over a couple of years.

The plan seems surprisingly plausible, as does the program written to make it happen.

Livingston is so genially low-key (as are the oddly disconnected appearances by his girl friend, "Friend's" Jennifer Alston, who is so clumsily inserted as to suggest she filmed it at different times) that we pretty much stop caring what happens to him (since he doesn't why should we?).

The movie's great creation is the mumbling, resentful, aging nerd Milton, played by Stephen Root ("Newsradio"). Milton has accumulated a lifetime of grievances, from seeing his favorite stapler switched, to having his cubicle repeatedly moved, to having been laid off years earlier but never told. When Peter asks him to turn his radio down, Milton mumbles that he won't, because he has the right to keep his radio on from 9 to ll a.m. Cowed but hostile, Milton manages even to get screwed out of his piece of cake at an office party. But he never stops keeping score, and we never doubt he'll get even.

"Office Space" has some wickedly savage depictions of how work sometimes sucks in the age of the hi-tech company. For people at the bottom rung of giant corporations, work is temporal, boring and low-paying.

The young especially are moved around, alienated and exploited at will. For all that "Office Space" is a comedy, Judge doesn't seem to be kidding about his dead-on workplace depictions.

In "Office Space," layers of bosses fuss about memos and procedures, and the inevitable team of management consultants show up to wantonly toss people out the window.

That the consultants (known as the two "Bobs") instinctively read Peter's disenchantment, arrogance and defiance as obvious signs of a worker destined for higher management is one of the neater twists of the movie. "Office Space" is the first live-action feature directed by the creator of "Beavis and Butt-head" and "King of the Hill." An expansion of three animated shorts created by Judge for TV over the past decade, it has a wandering, disjointed feel to it. It doesn't really hang together as a movie, but more as a satisfying collection of biting work depictions.

These portrayals are almost disturbingly credible. Anybody who works for somebody else will find something in it to relate to and laugh about. But you can't see "Office Space" without wishing that the weirdly geeky Milton gets a series or movie all of his own next time around.

Mail-to: jonkatz@slashdot.org
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Movie Review:Office Space More

Movie Review:Office Space

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  • ...but it's Jennifer *Anniston*, not "Alston".
    --
    This post brought to you by synaptik, in glorious PLAINTEXT.
  • I think you may be missing a little of the point in speculating about why we should/shouldn't care about any of the "protagonists" of the film. The movie wasn't about them, it was about us, all the little hassles cubicle inhabitants deal with every day, and the things we'd all do if we just didn't give a damn about getting fired. It's like Dilbert, but without the goofy animals and the attempts at humor. It doesn't -have- to _try_ to be funny... it's got the "ha ha, only serious," quality that so many geeks love.

    The plot seems to have only been there as a vehicle to link together all the other scenes... I never found myself caring if they were going to get away with the money or not. None of the previews I saw contained so much as a hint of the actual plot, which would suggest to me that the producers rated it about as highly as I did.

    There wasn't much in the way of conventional gags or quotable one-liners in the movie (though I did like, "Why should I have to change? He's the one who sucks."), but I still laughed my ass off several times. Why? Because it's all true. This is satire, folks... very accurate, barbed satire...
  • Personally, I've always wished that Beavis and Butthead were real people so that they could be slowly tortured to death for their crimes against intelligence and good taste. The mere sound of that stupid laugh is enough to send me into paroxyms of homicidal rage.

    And I thought Office Space was hilarious.
  • The trick refers to the little bits of meat left over when you're slicing salami in a deli.


    I first heard of it in the 70s. Might even have been earlier.

  • Posted by stodge:

    Yeah....rah....rah.....another geek movie....yeah....right on....yeah.....geek....yeah....right on

    (me trying to sound excited about another geek movie)
  • Posted by DonR:

    So? You're in the IT profession (I'm assuming) The market has never been better. Sure, you can work at a job until they lay YOU off, but why not work at a job until YOU decide that you want to go elsewhere, for more money, better benefits, just feel like moving, whatever! The IT profession is so fast moving right now, it makes it a lot of fun to be in!
  • Some here are already giving Jon a hard time about focusing on "geek films" and whatnot. I just wanted to throw-in my $0.02 by saying that over the last three years I've been waiting to see characters from my discipline reflected in the movies. I've gotten the hang of hollywood's view of doctors, lawyers, and law-enforcement officers and would love to see more programmers. Ok, so maybe we're not all that interesting, but the fact that movie-makers are trying more to appeal to our demographic is. (To me, at least.)
  • That's a good way to put it. It triggered some thoughts...

    The transition from trickle to torrent is what he's spotlighting. Katz hasn't claimed that there's never before been a film that appealed to geeks, or anything remotely similar. As you've said, he's calling attention to the sudden upswing. He's talking about the rise in frequency, and you're saying: so what, we've been getting a droplet per year for two decades now. To put it in terms that everyone can understand: One person is celebrating the sudden mainstream attention linux has been getting, and people are saying "Bah, linux is old; I've been using it since 1991".
  • Bah, that's old. Characters have been inaccurate representations since ancient greece. ;-)
  • You said "suck".
  • It was more depressing than funny.

    If you can't appreciate the movie as a comedy, maybe you should take the film's central message to heart: if you're not happy in your cubicle, change careers.

  • If you're a programmer for a large faceless corporation, see Office Space. It's so true that I laughed my ass off. Rushmore has it's moments, but it's not as much of a true comedy. Of course it's also going to be gone from the theaters in a week or two, so you might want to see it while you can.
  • That whole scene was hilarious- the guy with 34 pieces of "flare" is the spittin' image of one of the waiters at the local TGI Fridays. Hilarious! I almost had a hernia I laughed so hard!
  • One word..

    MOXIE!! ;-P

  • -Put your right hand in the box.
    -What's in the box?
    -Pain.
  • Who didn't *die* when the unpronouncable last name computer guy (we've all worked with him ... or you WILL) started busting a serious old school move in the living room. Down to the fscking popping! That was the best. Oh wait a minute... does anyone know what I mean? :)
  • >No one pretended to be clever in the movie, which
    was refreshing



    Ah good to hear! Things like movies usually take a long time to make it into this part of the world (unless its the blockbuster type movies, in which case it usually is about 4-6 weeks post USA release).

  • Down under here, a couple of years ago, some guys got done for exactly this. IIRC it was the Commonwealth Bank (Which Bank?). Basically all they did was to siphon the partial cents from each interest calculation of every account into their own separate account. Doesn't sound like much, but when you work out that every day there are a couple of million accounts that their doing this to, it suddenly adds up to very large sums of spare cash.
  • Why is it that whenever someone mentions Mike Judge, they always mention Beavis and Butthead and King of the Hill, but never Daria? Granted, Judge isn't as directly involved with Daria as he was with B&B or is with KotH, but Daria is probably his best creation ever. She's actually *intellectual*, and it's her mocking a stupid world, rather than being part of it. It's a slice of life from the exact point of view I had in high school, except I didn't have a proverbial Jane to give me comfort by being miserable company.
    ---
  • The scene where they were infecting the system with Michael's virus definitely reminded of Resevoir Dogs, right down to the black suit Peter was wearing. But the best part was the way the shots, music, slo-mo and stop frames built this up into some complicated scheme, then Peter comes back (with everything back to normal) and said "Gee, that wasn't that hard." I was just rolling!

    And I just have to say that it's a good thing I saw this on a friday. If I had gone to work the day after seeing this, I don't know what I would've done :)
  • And you may rest assured that Hollywood will portray characters from your discipline every bit as accurately as they do doctors and lawyers and law-enforcement officers.

    Now somebody get busy and FLAME KATZ! I can't do it all myself :)
  • From what everyone has told me about the movie, it sounds more like a slightly embellished documentary than a fictional comedy.

    In a high-tech company where each person has been moved from cube to cube, and the team from area to area, and building to building (a half dozen times in the last 18 months), the title "Office Space" says it all.

    It seems that the few cubic feet that our cubicles take up are far more worthwhile than we, the employees who inhabit them. Then again, in a company with approximately 10,000 employees, how can you be more than a number?

  • stupidest movie ever made? you mean BEST movie ever made! norm macdonald rocks.
  • anyone remember the "live video" on the machines in that movie (which I think were Macs)? Only problem was, you could see the Quicktime scrollbar moving along beneath the "live" video!

    I also thought it was dumb how they made the movie politically correct by making the girl the computer genius and the boy unknowledgable, versus the boy being the one with the knowledge like it was in the book. Realistically, the boy was the more likely candidate for computer know-how anyway .
  • this movie was funny as hell!
    i really liked the part when the three friends
    went gangsta on the fax machine.....
    the whole thing rocked!
    and Katz did a good job with the review....
  • I really want to see this movie. My roomate claims that it must suck because it comes from the Beavis and Butthead/King of the Hill guy and as you all know both those cartoons suck hardcore. How do I convince him to go see it?
  • Hackers. Man did that movie ever suck.

    Not even mentioning the lack of plot and bad actors. But what the fsck were they doing on those mock up computers?

    That was a sad, sad movie.
  • I watched it with my girlfriend and both agreed that we didn't laugh because it was so funny but because it was so true. It reminded so much of my old job that sometimes I almost felt like my old boss was going to appear on screen. I finally found a hi-tech company with the right attitude, but this movie reminded me of old times!

    BTW, I get more zapped by my car than by my office furniture. Yesterday morning was so bad that my arm was numb for a few minutes. Maybe it's because I shake my butt on the car seat like Micheal Bolton did in the movie!

    M.
  • Assuming that there really is such a thing as a 'Geek Film Movement Thing' what would be good
    to film next ? Microserfs ? The Cuckoo's Egg ?
    My vote's for the Llama book ...


    .c
  • Hmm. I can relate. Companies don't care about
    their employees anymore. We're expendable. Anyone
    who has been through a re-org knows this.

    http://members.xoom.com/Lycadican

    Geek Boy
    ********************************************
    Superstition is a word the ignorant use to describe their ignorance. -Sifu
  • See Whichever one has the "Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me" trailer before it! That was the funniest part of my whole movie going experience last weekend!


    "If there's one movie you will see this summer, it should be... Star Wars!!

    If there are two movies you will see this summer, see Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me"
  • I can't fathom why anyone would watch it. Beavis and Butthead was a stupid show about stupid people, any way you look at it. About as stupid as SouthPark. I feel sorry for those people who have such an unrefined sense of humor that simply watching cartoon characters swear pushes their buttons. King of the Hill I've never watched, but from the commercials, it seems like a show about Beavis and Butthead's parents.

    Then again, there's tv for you. 2 words. Lizard Brain.

    -lx
  • ...which is exactly what the character in the movie says: "Yeah, they did it in Superman III, and some hackers did it in the 70's and got caught for it."

    No one pretended to be clever in the movie, which was refreshing - you didn't have some one magically cracking into the CIA's computer from a van parked outside (a la "Mission Impossible"). And when they check their bank statement after running their siphoning program, they find out the program had a bug in it and transferred too much money. That, too, was refreshing: a confident hacker's code had a bug in it and really screwed up (how many times have you seen that in the work place? :).

    Soulfry
  • ./'ers will appreciate this movie. And don't get hung up by the fact that at one moment the guy's screen is a Mac, and the next moment it's showing a DOS "C:\" prompt. Just take it as a cross-platform jab at computers ;)

    The "gangsta" soundtrack and film style of some of the scenes was the genius of this movie.

    Soulfry
  • ...was when he was dreaming that his boss was having sex with his girlfriend and he (the boss) takes a sip from his coffee mug.

    Soulfry
  • It does to "Tough guy vs the Mob" movies what Scream did to the slasher genre. It was a riot, despite the blood and blow-ups.

  • My suggestion would be "The First $20 Million Is Always the Hardest" by Po Bronson, his second novel. It's a thinly disguised novel about Silicon Valley culture and fictional creation of a Java-like universal language.

    Strangely both of Bronson's novel deals with workplace. His first novel, Bombadier is about the absurd happening in a bond sales office.
  • A computer that's a Mac one minute and a PC the next? I own one. (Anyone remember the PowerMac 6100 DOS compatibles?)

    I have to be a smart ass because although my computer has 2 motherboards, neither is terribly useful.
  • Considering the VERY prominent soundtrack accompanyment to that brilliant scene, along with the camera angles and slo-mo work, I think some of the major influences for that sequence come from the world of rap video, possibly the early 90's video for the Geto Boyz "My Mind Playin' Tricks On Me" with some influence from The Beastie Boys "So What'cha Want."
  • The characters of Beavis and Butthead were stupid. The show was not. Come on, you're talking about a show that had the lead character quote Shakespeare in reaction to Van Halen's "Right Now": "Words, words, words." If can't grok the irony involved in something like that, don't bother trying to convince others that the show was stupid.
  • I guess I am the sad type of person to notice all of it but...

    Did anyone else notice the computers were mainly mac based... but that they had DOS boot screens, and when they shut down they went to the infamous C:\> prompt?

    And all the computer software boxes in the background.. they could have gone to developers and gotten real boxes, not really old versions of dBase and stuff.

    All movies do this... can't they get a consultant to get it right for them? One movie I saw not too long ago must have had a consultant because all the screens were Linux... damn, I wish I could remember the title... too many movies on Sundance Channel.

    Ah well...
  • i saw 'office space' over the weekend, and laughed all the way through. jon's right - it isn't a brilliant movie - but the first three minutes had me laughing more than i've ever laughed at a dilbert cartoon.

    there are some great satirical touches, like michael bolton rocking out to hardcore rap one minute and locking his door in fear of a black flower seller the next. and i was so happy to see someone else noticing the office-static-shock syndrome that any outstanding flaws in the movie were instantly forgiven.

    oh, and also it was a GEEK MOVIE!!! from that new GEEK MOVIE genre!!! so that was a plus.

  • if you think those 'cartoons' suck, i suggest that both you and your roommate just don't bother. go see 'jawbreaker' or something instead. i'm sure you will find it fulfilling.

    i hear that MANSON is in it!!!
  • Rushmore is a better film, I think, but office space is really funny.

    My only problem with officespace is the end, which was so lame as to erode much of the good will I had towards the movie.
  • Forget your roommate.

    I have no real opinion on B&B, other than that it didn't suck like I expected it to. King of the Hill, on the other hand, is one of the few brilliant half hours of television in modern times. Fat kid's funny!
  • I've only got enough cash to see one movie (I spent the rest on a new computer) so should I go see Rushmore or Office Space?
  • yeah, thats why i thought it was so funny...i work at a university, and the first time i saw that on the good 'ol 4M, I said "what the fuck does that mean?!" ....not too professional :)


    *sorry, forgot my passwd when i posted this!*
  • Katz is usually pretty good, but he was way off
    on this one. This movie wasn't oscar material by
    any means, but there is more to it than Jon gives
    credit too. The beat-down scene with the fax
    plays on every mob/gangster/ghetto movie cliche.
    And Livingston (Peter) is great, he's supposed to
    be indifferent... that's the character.
  • My gf and I just got back from seeing it - we practically peed our pants. However, I agree with Jon's conclusion - it's not really that strong of a script, and I just as easily could've waited to rent it.

    But goddamn that was funny.

    The most brilliant character in the movie was Milton, played by Steven Root, who's not only the weird owner of the radio staton on News Radio, but also does the voices of Bill Dautrive and Mr Strickland on KOTH. We did NOT recognize him in this movie. He's SCARY in Office Space.

    Brilliant.

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