Ron Livingston in "Office Space."

MOVIE INFORMATION

With 10 as a must-see, Jack gives this film a: Stars: Ron Livingston, Gary Cole, Jennifer Aniston Director: Mike Judge Rated: R, Language and brief nudity Length: 92 minutes

ROCHESTERCRITIQUE

Having seen this film, how would you rate it? 10 5 9 4 8 3 7 2 6 1

By Jack Garner
Democrat and Chronicle

(Feb. 19, 1999) -- If you've ever wanted to take a baseball bat to a recalcitrant fax machine or ignore your idiot boss when he asks you to work over the weekend, you'll feel at home in Office Space.

For his first live-action feature film, Beavis and Butthead animator Mike Judge takes aim at the modern work place. And the writer-director hits his broad target enough times to generate full-fledged belly laughs. At least for an hour or so.

But like an office printer that runs out of paper, Office Space comes up short in the final reel.

Office Space stars refreshing newcomer Ron Livingston as Peter Gibbons, a computer programmer at "Initech Corporation." Each day he fights traffic jams to settle into a tiny cubicle, where he goes through lines and lines and lines of old computer programs, lifting out potential Y2K problems.

His workmates include an immigrant named Samir (Ajay Naidu), and a timid programmer named Michael Bolton (David Herman). And, yes, Bolton hates the famous singer with the same name. In fact, this white milquetoast fellow uses gangsta rap music to fuel his fantasy life.

And then there's the truly bizarre Milton, a mumbling zero of a worker who long ago used up his usefulness and spends each day intensely guarding his stapler.

Their boss is the nefarious Bill Lumbergh (a hilarious Gary Cole), whose soft-spoken management style fails to hide the self-centered smugness behind it.

Peter hates his life, but doesn't see a way out. Then he visits a "hypnotherapist" for counseling with his estranged girlfriend, and everything changes. The therapist suffers a heart attack and dies, leaving Peter hynotized. In that mellow state, nothing matters -- not even his job. He sleeps through his alarm, he strolls into the office only occasionally, he takes no guff from anyone, he even dismantles the cubicle wall that disrupts his view out a window.

But instead of getting him fired, his outspoken independence gets him promoted. (He's viewed as a straight-shooting self-starter.) But then he discovers his office friends are about to be fired.

And that's exactly when Judge's creativity turns flat. Peter and his two buddies dream up a scheme to infiltrate the company computer system to skim off money. The once-clever Office Space degenerates into an unimaginative, unfunny caper flick.

Also, Jennifer Aniston barely appears in Office Space. She plays a waitress who catches Peter's eye in the gang's favorite lunch place. Though she's the best-known name in the credits, her love-interest role is inconsequential.

In fact, none of Judge's characters are especially well-developed; they're all little more than "types" in a sketch comedy. It may simply be that this cartoonist who mostly works in short-form animation needs more practice creating full-fledged, flesh-and-blood characters or sustaining their tale for 90 minutes.

Still, the first hour offers enough entertaining satire and pinpricking of pretense to make the enterprise worthwhile, especially for the many low-level office employes who confront corporate idiocy on a daily basis.