Office Space

This one is an ode to all of my programmer / IT friends. Surely you would have in your times in the country or outside it, experienced several of the points that have been shown in Office Space. Experiences that are gut wrenchingly frustrating and makes your want to really beat someone up – especially if that someone is your project manager or one of your several bosses. And that too for matters that are excruciatingly insignificant but would be portrayed as the most important thing that has ever happened in the history of the organization. We are talking about the pain, that people who are otherwise known as “cubicle dwellers” or are known to indulge in what is called as “prarier dogging”, go through on a daily basis.


Peter Gibbons (Ron Livingston) is one such programmer for a small firm that goes by the name of Initech. His life is being converted into a living nightmare thanks to one of his 8 bosses Bill Lumbergh (Gary Cole). Bill is designated as the Vice President of Operations or something to that extent, the primary benefit for which is an exclusive parking lot with his name on it. And then there is the aspect of Peter’s anorexic and extremely irritating girlfriend Anne (Alexandra Wentworth) who Peter believes is cheating on him but is desperate to make it work – haven’t we seen that before. As a last ditch effort, Peter agrees to accompany Anne to a occupational hypnotherapist who can probably help him out. But as the shrink is performing his hypnosis, he suffers a massive heart attack and just dies right in front of Peter. Peter, although not hypnotized feels something snapping inside his head and decides to do exactly what he wants to do going forward starting with dumping Anne and then not reporting for work on the weekend.

Simultaneously, Initech has recruited a couple of “consultants” Bob Slydell (John C McGinley) and Bob Porter (Paul Wilson) whose job is to assess what each one of the people @ Initech are upto – in short, they are here to fire people. In the process they decide to move out Samir Nagheenanajar (Ajay Naidu – no IT movie can be complete without an Indian right), Michael Bolton (David Herman – yes his name is Michael Bolton but he doesn’t like any of his songs) and Tom Smykowski (Richard Riehle – an employee of 30 years) amongst several other not so significant characters. Peter though, thanks to his care a damn attitude, gets portrayed as the next big senior manager by the Bobs much to the surprise of Peter’s bosses. Thanks to his movement, he gets to know of that Samit and Michael are being fired. Together they hatch a plan to load a virus into the organization payroll that takes away a fraction of a cent for every transaction and puts it into an account which would over a period of 2 years get them a reasonable sum of money. As good as stealing. But will they be able to get away with it?

Office Space is based on the animated short series titled “Milton” by the director Mike Judge who is primarily known for his Beavis and Butt-head series that created a minor rage in the second half of the 90s. Hot on its heels is where Mike Judge released Office Space – smart move which would probably indicate why it is rated @ nearly 8 stars on imdb which is way too high for a movie of this quality. There is not much acting on display. Surprisingly it is not a slapstick comedy like a Beavis & Butt-head and truly tries to portray what our programmer friends go through. Entertaining in parts but not really too great. But, considering that the only semblance of a know actor would be Jennifer Aniston who plays the part of furniture, quite a decent effort. I would go no where close to the 8 stars that imdb calls out. 5 on 10 from my end.

Watch the trailer on http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi4159963929/