Highly Overrated But Still Good

Don't listen to the negative reviews

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

This film should come with a warning label for anyone that currently holds an office job. One might have a cathartic experience after watching this cult classic inspiring one to leave their job, which will unlikely be able to sustain their livelihood. The 1999 film, Office Space, directed by Mike Judge does that magic like only film can of bringing to life characters that everyone knows. Anyone in a working environment can relate to, or recognize someone on screen from their own life. Starring Ron Livingston and Jennifer Aniston in an exploration of how rarely one feels satisfied in their job, and what we can do to solve the cognitive dissonance of spending so much time at a place we hate, Office Space proves a valuable lesson to audiences everywhere. Peter Gibbons (Ron Livingston) is a low-level office worker responsible for rewriting minute details of code within computer algorithms to prepare for the 2000 switch. Spending his days adding two columns of numbers leaves him feeling unfulfilled in both his work and life. Peter is in a failing relationship, lives in a meager apartment, and sees no light at the end of the tunnel that has become his life. After a round of hypnotherapy, Peter reaches, for the first time in his life, a true state of ecstasy. Peter is able to remove the chains his job holds over him and create the satisfaction he has been longing for. Peter decides that his life should no longer revolve around work, and in divorcing that previous belief, he finds a fulfilling relationship with waitress Joanna (Jennifer Aniston) and has freed up more time for what he has always wanted to do in life, nothing. His changed attitude has been noticed by the upper-level management in his company who has recently been taxed with the responsibility of downsizing, as the millennium switch is nearing completion. What upper-level management has noticed about him is that he in unchallenged in his current role, and is a go-getter that is revolutionary in discovering ways his company can save time. While Peter is promoted within the company, and his two friends, the unfortunately named Michael Bolton (David Herman) and Samir Nagheenanajar (Ajay Naidu) have both been laid off; Milton Waddams (Stephen Root) the ritualistic easy target continuously has his desk moved just for the fun of an overreaching micromanaging boss, Bill Lumbergh (Gary Cole), and wannabe inventor Tom Smykowski (Richard Riehle) attempts suicide because he is so disheartened with the constant worry of being laid off his employment holds over him. Peter's office is full of unhappiness and unfulfillment that spills over into each of the individual's lives outside of work. When Peter shares with his friends that they will be laid off, he develops an idea to implant a virus Michael knows about into the computer systems collecting rounded off cents accrued on interest and putting them into a separate account that the three could have access to. This plot will save the three of them from jobs they hate and allow them to do with their lives what they actually wish to do. After an error, they realizing that they are embezzling a lot more money than they intended to and are now faced with a seemingly certain prison sentence and are aided by Milton in a way no one could have foreseen.Working at an office job in which I spend much downtime, like Peter, and I feel like my soul is sucked out of me little by little on a daily basis, I can more than appreciate the film Office Space. Life is full of expectations and as children, we are encouraged to make as many expectations for our lives as we can. The irony of life, however, is that whatever expectations we set out for ourselves are rarely realized in actuality. The culture, especially in America, is that what you do for work defines who you are, yet, few people identify with the work that they do. Office Space is a prime example of the paradox of living a life that you want. The fact that everyone in the audience knows a Milton, or a Peter, or a Michael Bolten speaks volumes to the fact that what we wish out of our lives is rarely what we achieve. Breaking free from the chains of our working lives is an essential part of truly living. Hopefully, a little bit of the lesson of Peter's ecstasy is one that the audience can inject into their own lives, ceasing to exist solely based on what they do and taking more time for what one truly enjoyes, even if that means doing nothing.

Ever wondered why are we here ? is there an edge to space and time or why are you stuck in a crummy job 9 to 5 ? well maybe this movie doesn't have the answer but at least it's a reflection of the cubicle hell that many have had to endure in the modern age.It's like the theatre of the absurd and I bet you've come across many of the characters in tis movie in the real life work place.Milton demonstrates how misfits can in one sense survive in those environments (even if they are in denial).Also be wary of those efficiency consultants that turn up trying to increase efficiency at the office, they're there to sack you ! remember to creep around the cubicles like a ninja at 5pm so the boss doesn't spot you and stall you, thaaaat wouuuulllddd beee greeeeaaaaaaat ! come in on Sunday, thanks !

A corporate comedy with lots of flair, "Office Space" makes me laugh but also strikes me as a missed opportunity.Disgruntled employee Peter Gibbons (Ron Livingston) has a daily case of the Mondays. "Every single day of my life has been worse than the one before it," he tells an occupational therapist, who puts him under hypnosis and then dies from a massive coronary. Still in a trance, Gibbons takes charge of his life. His sudden burst of initiative proves beneficial at first, but he soon finds there are no pit stops on the Great American Rat Race.As sleeper comedies go, "Office Space" has lasted not only on its own merits, but as clear inspiration for the later "Office" TV series. Tonally, this film communicates the quiet desperation of late-20th century worklife with a gimlet eye: Static electricity that turns doorknobs into joy buzzers; cubicle claustrophobia, banners with meaningless slogans like "Is This Good for the Company?"Where "Office Space" is less on point is with elements of story and character. The comic-strip quality of the script by director Mike Judge is apparent from the opening gag involving Gibbons' futile commute, and neither he nor his situation evolve into something involving. There's just a bunch of Dilbert-type gags that clonk you on the head with the futility of the basic situation.Gary Cole is the movie's lone standout from a performance standpoint. His supervisor character, Bill Lumbergh, is a masterpiece of mundane malevolence, sipping coffee as he duns poor Gibbons about those cover sheets on his TPS reports, or ordering sad-sack Milton (Stephen Root) to move into the office basement and spray pesticide on the cockroaches.As a character, there's a lot of potential in seeing his comeuppance, which you don't quite get. The film spins around for a while instead, following a pair of thin plot threads. One involves the only recognizable name in the cast, Jennifer Aniston as a frazzled waitress with whom Gibbons develops an under-developed relationship. The main crisis point for them comes when he learns of her past relationship with Lumbergh, which is another of those undeveloped opportunities.The other story bit, involving a computer fraud, hikes up the tension but is similarly brushed off by Judge rather than developed into anything deeper.There are funny moments sprinkled throughout the movie, and a lot of quotable lines: "I have people skills!" "Why should I change? He's the one who sucks." "I did absolutely nothing and it was everything I thought it could be." "I wouldn't say I'm 'missing' work!"There's one enjoyably zen plot thread involving two efficiency experts, played by John C. McGinley and Paul Willson, who somehow see in Gibbons' new attitude a role model for the rest of the company. How they come to this conclusion I don't quite get, but their interactions with each other and Cole are consistently masterful.If you want a few good laughs about the workplace, at least as it existed back when cubicle walls and the Year 2000 virus were the biggest concerns, "Office Space" provides more than a few. It takes its shots and scores some points. If only it connected with something a little deeper then a drone's desire to achieve full catatonia.

Peter Gibbons is a man tired of your life and work, in a moment of utter exhaustion and sadness, undergoes a hypnosis session, completely changing their behavior. With that, he begins to completely rebel jobs and in life, doing whatever want, whenever want. Everything seems to go wrong and be dismissed - for just cause -, right? No, it's like that than everything starts to go right with him, getting everything, and, even without caring, still works.And so goes the film has enough funny scenes, many simple, but some really forced, in my opinion. But even so, the spectator can take some good laughter. The problem is that the film, despite the funny scenes, ends up not exploring much that could exploit, making not have much history and not much depth on each piece of the film, maybe because the film is short, there is not much between your rebel by the end, it's all very quick and simplistic, without much exploration of thematic or characters. Besides, the movie has absence of logic in some parts, especially in various situations where his boss, Bill Lumbergh, even seeing Peter do things that would be layoffs in any job, do not dismiss it. But, of course, if it happens, the film would lose big part the theme.The film's it. It's cool, fun to watch, yields good laugh, but do not expect anything too deep or well produced. But to a situation of just relax and laugh, worth watching.