Office Christmas Party — Blue Fairy Film Blog

Just the title alone should give you an idea about what this rowdy, brash comedy has to offer: Visual gags, drug references, sexual overtones, and a whole lot of ridiculousness. This huge mass of a film comes complete with out of control stunts, an extreme amount of decadence, mean pimps, flowing booze, and a company at stake. Though this may not be a Christmas classic for future generations, there’s a lot of good and easy to like elements to this film, though there’s also a lot of formulaic aspects to this Jason Bateman and T.J. Miller helmed bro-comedy.

While I liked that the screenwriters actually tried to construct a plot with an ensemble cast that includes full-fledged characters, there was simply too much going on. Nobody cares about the fiscal responsibilities of large companies, or the economic incentives of the technology marketplace. Even tried and true nerds do not want to go into a movie called, “Office Christmas Party,” with the intention of hearing about coding or the condition of Dell’s servers. It’s just not interesting. Throw in a villainous sister CEO (Aniston) with a bottom line of slashing her father’s company to shreds through mass layoffs and other corporate waste, and it’s an even bigger snooze. This is the main detraction from the film, because all this corporate jibber jabber decelerates the plot and makes the actual partying and debauchery slow to a crawl, laying on the laughs far too late in the film.

The actual comedy is a bit of a mishmash of drug humor, physical comedy, sexual humor, and visual gags. Some moments are actually pure gold. Courtney B. Vance plays financial giant Walter Davis straight most of the film, but then through zany circumstances goes ape, and honestly the ensuing montage was the funniest two minutes of film I have seen this year. Other great scenes include Fortune Feimster as an Uber driver, Jillian Bell as a bipolar pimp, and Randall Park and Vanessa Bayer’s entire scene in the company day care. Truly, this is a film that benefits from its large cast of great comedians, which includes Kate McKinnon, Olivia Munn, and Karan Soni as a nervous tech support director. The smaller moments that have the room to breathe make this film not only watchable but actually a little enjoyable. While I wouldn't say you should go out and see this film, know that it is a nice holiday comedy that does well with what it’s got.