Josh Gordon and Will Speck made their directorial debut with what might be the most underrated Will Ferrell film, Blades of Glory. Everyone remembers and regularly quotes Anchorman or Talladega Nights, but rarely is the gem of Blades of Glory mentioned among the giants in Will Ferrell's career. Seriously, go back and watch it and try not to laugh at nearly everything that comes out of Ferrell's mouth. Now, the movie could've been great because they had a comic genius like Will Ferrell to drastically change a mediocre script into a genuinely hilarious film... OR... it was already great to begin with. Flash forward four years and the next movie the duo made was the little-remembered movie The Switch with Jason Bateman and Jennifer Aniston. It's not an awful movie by any means, but who actually remembers seeing this movie? I've seen it and I don't remember a damn thing about it. Flash forward another six years and their third film to come out is Office Christmas Party. This looked more like a raunchy Blades of Glory type film where the two were able to showcase their comedy writing/directing skills to go along with some well-cast comedic actors. The end result feels more like a tale told at an actual office Christmas party rather than one we all need to go out and watch for ourselves.
There's a lot going on in the film, but the over-arching story is that involving Clay (TJ Miller), the head of a tech company who is under his quarterly numbers and is being threatened to be shut down by his CEO (and raging bitch) of a sister (Jennifer Aniston). His best employee Josh (Jason Bateman) and computer genius Tracey (Olivia Munn) ask for one extra night in order to secure a top client and win his business so the branch doesn't have to be shut down. Their idea-- throw a raging office christmas party and win him over by allowing him to see what a fun company they are. Along for this ride is a stuffy HR manager (Kate McKinnon), an assistant looking for love (Vanessa Bayer), a dude with a weird baby fetish (Randall Park), the office asshole (Rob Corddry), and a pimp (Jillian Bell). The antics of each of these employees come to a head and crash and burn the office party into something that I'm sure sounded a lot crazier on paper than it is to watch.
The good of the film are a lot of the characters. I particularly liked the character of Clay. He's such an easy target for selfish asshole boss trust fund kid who doesn't know what the hell he is doing, but the role has been reversed and he's a very altruistic boss trust fund kid who doesn't know what the hell he is doing. He's not trying to save the company in order to save his own ass. He's genuinely trying to stop people from losing their jobs. Jason Bateman, as always, is very droll and fun to watch, but even he felt like it was below the level of comedy we've come to expect from him. Then, there are little moments here and there that kick you in the funny bone, but unfortunately, they are few and far between.
There's nothing really bad about the movie other than the fact that it's just not that funny. The script seems like it was centered around the idea of an insane Christmas party set inside the parameters of an office. Yet, nothing that insane happens. We expect windows to be broken and copiers to be smashed, and clothes to fly, and drinks to be had... but what new does this movie offer that makes us just HAVE to go see this movie? I can't really find a reason. And while everyone is pretty likable, I just kept waiting for the comedy to arrive. It was all funny in idea and theory, but not necessarily in execution. Each character has a moment that elicits a chuckle or two, but there's really not that one big memorable moment from comedies that truly are successful in making an audience laugh and becoming a classic (especially a Christmas classic... we haven't had a new one of those in quite some time).
While the movie really wants to be a Christmas movie mixed with The Hangover and Horrible Bosses, it really does fall flat most of the time when it shouldn't. I wish I'd seen something more in the movie that was both shocking and hilarious, rather than something I could've written for the first draft of a movie with the same title. 2016 has been a pretty bad year for comedies in general with really only The Nice Guys standing out as something exceptional. Office Christmas Party certainly isn't the worst of the year, and it's definitely entertaining to a point, but it's one movie that should've been much better than it ended up being.
C
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