Word: initech
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Office Space explores the existential despair of human beings confined to anonymous cubicles in myriad, analogous corporations across the country. The protagonist, Peter Gibbons, played by everyman Ron Livingston, is fed-up with the endless paper shuffling at corporate nightmare Initech, his unctuously sinister boss Bill Lumberg (Gary Cole) and, in short, his life in general. Gibbons' arguments against the system are blandly familiar and add nothing new to the common polemics against human automatism. But Gibbons' main function is to give the similarly disillusioned audience an easily identifiable character. And the audience at this particular viewing (mostly 20-somethings...
...then there are the supporting characters--amazingly transformed into walking and talking jokes and little more. Judge glaringly neglects these personages, especially Gibbons' buddies at Initech, Samir (Ajay Naidu) and the nominally cursed Michael Bolton (David Herman). The cast of Office Space is, essentially, a cast of cartoon characters or caricatures, only two of which arguably come off: Lumberg and Milton (Steven Root), a pathetic co-worker at Initech who is bound for disgruntled postal worker or serial killer status...
...transition is complete when he breaks up with the girlfriend and begins courting a waitress, played by Jennifer Aniston, who fits in perfectly with this under-talented cast. Gibbons does return to work, however, and his new attitude inexplicably impresses two new executives hired to clean house at Initech, resulting in his promotion and the release of Samir and Michael. Now vowing revenge on the company, the three friends plant a computer virus that rounds off transactions and places the excess money into an account (sound familiar?). Predictably, things get really screwed up but are miraculously resolved in an event...
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