By Lindsi Hebert, Staff Reporter.
Released in 1999, directed by Mike Judge and based off of the Milton animated shorts, “Office Space” tells the story of Peter Gibbons (Ron Livingston), his two friends Michael Bolton (David Herman) and Samir Nagheenanajar (Ajay Naidu) and their jobs working as code monkeys for the software company Initech. It’s the typical crappy job, complete with a horse’s rear end of a boss Bill Lumbergh (Gary Cole), and unfortunately for Peter, it’s going to get worse before it gets better.
First, his girlfriend is cheating on him and he’s the last to find out. She also drags Peter to a hypnotherapist because he’s becoming a downer to everybody else. In the session, Peter asks the doctor to “zonk” him out. Peter’s session ends up getting so intense that the doctor suffers a fatal cardiac arrest and dies. Surprisingly, the session works and Peter has no craps to give. The next day Initech starts to downsize, and begins making the employees interview for their own jobs. Peter, thanks to his hypnotherapy session, manages to not only keep on at the Initech staff, but also get promoted. His two friends Michael and Samir, however, aren’t so lucky. This leads them to hate the company, and they start a plan to get even by creating a software that embezzles money into their bank accounts, and everything goes horribly wrong.
“Office Space” is a dark comedy that hits every right note. Aside from the main story with Peter, you have a small side story about a squirrely guy named Milton (Stephen Root) and his struggles with payroll and his love for his red stapler. Sometimes, the humor may come across a little forced, especially before Peter gets hypnotized. Actually, Peter himself isn’t all that funny of a character, but he’s surrounded by other characters that are. In fact, some of the funniest parts of the movie come from Milton, whose screen time for the whole movie is maybe a half hour.
The jokes in “Office Space” are funny, and not the kind of funny that just makes you type “lol” in the comment section, either. There were a few times that I had to pause the movie because I was laughing too hard to hear what they were talking about. For some people, though, the jokes will just go over their heads. “Office Space” does run the risk of being too realistic to be funny, but if you’ve ever chuckled at a Dilbert comic, you’ll like “Office Space”
Personally, this is one of my absolute favorite movies. Whether it’s on the silver screen or being re-enacted by cartoon bunnies, I will watch it. It shows some good points to terrible jobs and you can (if you’re the sort of person who likes this kind of thing) find some really interesting philosophical themes present that actually make you think. Without spoilers, you get to see the characters do things at their jobs that you might have only dreamed of doing. “Office Space” is an excellent watch and a completely underrated film.
