What do you do when the CEO announces that she’s shutting down your branch during the office Christmas party? You party like Hell!
That’s part of the premise of the movie, Office Christmas Party, which opens Friday, January 9th.
Fun-loving Clay (T.J. Miller) heads the Chicago branch office, while his uptight sister, Carol (Jennifer Aniston), is the CEO of Zenotech, their father’s computer business. During an executive meeting, Carol announces huge layoffs and possible closure of the Chicago branch, hours before their office Christmas party. Clay, Chief Technical Officer Josh (Jason Bateman), and lead programmer Tracey (Olivia Munn), must rally the troops to help save the office by closing the sale of a potential client, Walter Davis (Courtney B. Vance). So they decide to put on the biggest company Christmas party to impress their client to sign with them.
I’m pretty sure that every office has, at least one or more, of these office worker types being portrayed in that office. Because I saw at least two people that were similar to people that I currently work with, although a bit more exaggerated in the movie. Among the office staff are: office policy enforcer HR manager Mary (Kate McKinnon), foul-mouth Customer Service manager Jeremy (Rob Corddry), Clay’s all-knowing Assistant Allison (Vanessa Bayer), the new guy with a fetish Fred (Randall Park), Joel aka DJ Kool (Sam Richardson), sexy office worker Meghan (Jamie Chung), receptionist Kelsey (Chloe Wepper), and stun gun wielding Security Guard Carla (Da’Vine Joy Randolph).
The party slowly escalates into a out of control riot as the employees find out that their office is going to be closed for good.
Never have I seen an office Christmas party quite like this. I’ve been to quite a few of them, which were nowhere near as epic and crazy. Although I kinda wish at least one of those Christmas parties were like this and people just let loose.
With all the things that are happening in the office, I’m surprised that the police or fire department never showed up. A vending machine is rolled through a glass window, falls from the building and smashes to the ground, nearly missing Carol as she is walking toward the office building. Then there is the flaming Christmas tree jousting and a smouldering fire near the end of the movie, which does not trigger the sprinklers or fire alarms.
The jokes are funny but some are a bit childish, like farts. There is also some scenes with some nakedness, boobs, butts and a penis shot. Some of the scenes made me cringe and think to myself, “Oh dang! That must have hurt.” Like when Walter Davis falls from the 2nd floor, while swinging from a bunch of Christmas lights, and smashing into a cabinet below. Then there is the scene with Jennifer Aniston and a little girl in the airport in which she drops the F-bomb on her after she eats her Cinnabon. Jason Bateman taking an eggnog shot from an ice sculpture is a pretty memorable scene. I sure would like to see the out takes from those 2 scenes.
Kate McKinnon is funny as always. I remember watching Oliva Munn on Attack of the Show on G4 and the portrayal of her character in the movie reminded me of when she used to host that show.
Besides the main story being the Christmas party, there is a side story involving an escort (Abby Lee) and her nut-case pimp (Jillian Bell). The escort is hired by a tech supervisor (Karan Soni) to impress a couple of his co-workers to prove to them that he has a girlfriend. Jillian Bell is so funny as the pimp as she comes off as a hugger-type of person and nice, then turns a bit twisted pulling out a gun at times, waving it around at peoples heads.
The movie is pretty hilarious but the plot and story are pretty predictable.
Office Christmas Party is rated R and parties into theaters, Friday, December 9th.
