By Emilio Frenk
Directors: Josh Gordon and Will Speck
Cast: Jason Bateman, Olivia Munn, T.J. Miller, Courtney B. Vance, Jillian Bell, Rob Corddry, Randall Park, Vanessa Bayer, Kate McKinnon and Jennifer Aniston.
Rating: Poor.
Josh Gordon and Will Speck, directors of “The Switch” and “Blades of Glory” bring “Office Christmas Party”, another comedy this holiday season and it was a huge dissapointment.
The movie takes place in Chicago, during the winter and tells the story of Josh Parker (Jason Bateman) a recently divorced Chief Technical Officer from the tech company Zenoteck who works closely with the engineer Tracy Hughes (Olivia Munn).
He has a very good relantionship with Clay Vanstone (T.J. Miller) who inherets the company and runs it with his sister and CEO Carol (Jennifer Aniston); in the day she organizes a meeting and announces that she is going to shut down the office due to the low numbers they have shown recently.
The solution and hope is to seek Walter Davis (Courtney B. Vance) who is a potential candidate to invest in their company. Clay, Josh and Tracy convince him to come to the annual Christmas Party of the company even though Carol previosly ordered to cancel the party.
Now the staff of Zenoteck will try to enjoy their party even if it means their last one and eventually will try to attach Walter Davis to the company in order to save everyone’s jobs in Christmas Eve.
Josh Gordon and Will Speck they know how to direct comedies. We saw it in both “The Switch” and “Blades of Glory” which not only they are very funny movies but they have interesting characters and a great premise.
The problem that I saw with “Office Christmas Party” was the fact the movie was so lame and the premise was interesting. The execution not so much.
The direction by both Gordon and Speck was not as precise and detailed and the movie was filled with dumb clichés at every single moment.
This movie has a very talented cast that include two of the most funniest people in the industry like T.J. Miller, who is hilarious in the HBO Show “Silicon Valley” and Kate Mckinnon who is a regular in “Saturday Night Live”.
I felt the movie repetive, slow and too predictable and for a comedy this are the things you cannot allow to happen.
There were moments I did laugh of the film but when the second act started it went downhill and it’s a shame because this movie could have been an enjoyable film for this holiday season and it was not the case.
The screenplay envolved four writers and when you bring to many people on board to write a movie it’s where the real trouble begins. You can tell that the writers didn’t know how to express what they wanted in the screen and this was the result of it.
Both “The Switch” and “Blades of Glory” are very funny movies and memorable and I hope this is a good learning experience for both Josh Gordon and Will Speck since they know how to direct this kind of movies.
With that being said “Office Christmas Party” is one big dissapointment in comedy with a potential cast that was wasted and I cannot recommend it.