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Its cast of gifted comics is good for a handful of laughs, but Office Christmas Party's overstuffed plot ultimately proves roughly as disappointing as its clichéd gags and forced sentimentality. Read critic reviews
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Office Christmas Party videos
Office Christmas Party: Trailer 3
Office Christmas Party: Trailer 2
Office Christmas Party: Trailer 1
Office Christmas Party Photos
Movie Info
When the CEO (Jennifer Aniston) tries to close her hard-partying brother's (T.J. Miller) branch, he and his chief technical officer (Jason Bateman) must rally their co-workers and host an epic office Christmas party in an effort to impress a potential client and close a sale that will save their jobs.
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Rating: R (Drug Use|Crude Sexual Content|Graphic Nudity|Language Throughout)
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Genre: Holiday, Comedy
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Original Language: English
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Director: Josh Gordon, Will Speck
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Producer: Guymon Casady, Daniel Rappaport, Scott Stuber
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Writer: Justin Malen, Laura Solon, Dan Mazer
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Release Date (Theaters): wide
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Release Date (Streaming):
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Box Office (Gross USA): $54.1M
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Runtime:
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Distributor: Paramount Pictures
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Production Co: Bluegrass Films, Entertainment 360
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Aspect Ratio: Scope (2.35:1)
Cast & Crew
News & Interviews for Office Christmas Party
Critic Reviews for Office Christmas Party
Audience Reviews for Office Christmas Party
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So I'm gonna try and get this review done as quickly as I humanly can given that it's 9:01 pm right now and I haven't eaten yet but, who knows, I may be here until midnight. I always say that I'm gonna try and make these reviews more concise but I always fail. It's a curse. Eh, not really. I've never understood office Christmas parties, particularly those that are mandatory. I realize that if office Christmas parties weren't mandatory nobody would actually go to them. If you're spending 40-50 hours per week in an office the last thing you want is to spend more time than you need to at the office. Plus these parties often have the reputation of not being very good. As far as the mandatory aspect of it, I mean, really, how can you force people to do something they don't want to do after their work hours? Are you gonna fire them? What if they have a special needs kid at home that needs a lot of attention? You don't know the circumstances of someone's life and who might need them. I wonder if not attending one of those parties is grounds for termination. Because, honestly, that would be the stupidest reason to ever fire anyone. I don't even know why I'm talking about this. I'm bored, I'm tired, the last 9 days of my life have not been very good. I don't know. Anyway, for those of you who may not have known (Letterboxd, since I haven't reviewed one of his movies on here yet...or copy-pasted some from RottenTomatoes), I'm a big Jason Bateman fan. As far as modern comedic actors, there's very few like him that have the timing, the delivery and the facial expressions to, truly, make one of the most complete comedic actors working today. That he doesn't have the best track record, as his filmography is concerned, does not have anything to do with the fact that he's an untalented actor. Far from it. It has more to do with the fact that, sadly, he's been typecast in a certain type of role as a result of his tremendous performance as the straight-man in Arrested Development. I even know someone who hates Jason Bateman as a result of how much of an asshole he was in Juno. And I'm like, thinking to myself, well that's just how good of an actor he is. That your hatred of him transcended what's on-screen. But, I mean, as far as hating Jason Bateman, that should just be illegal. I suppose that's neither here nor there. The reason that I chose this is the same reason that I chose 13 Going On 30, I wanted something to forget all the shit that's been happening. And, also, the cast is full of some really talented actors so that made watching this, for me at least, a must. Well, not necessarily a must, but I know that dating back to its release I was like, even if this movie sucks, I wanna see it. That can be associated to the cast. Having said that, though, does this movie, in fact, suck? No, honestly, I wouldn't go that far. Is it a good movie? I don't know, I suppose we'll get into it. Answering those two questions leads me to this third one. Did I have fun watching this? Unequivocally, yes, I had fun watching this. Does that make me an awful person? No, I'm not Donald Trump for fuck's sake. I'm not saying that the movie isn't without its flaws, but I enjoyed my time with this and will, gladly, give it a positive rating. Story basically sees this struggling tech company, and its branch manager (Clay), trying to save this branch of the company from being shut down by the manager's evil sister (Carol). They do this by throwing this epic party for this man (Walter) that might help them save their company if he decides to go with them instead, of say, Dell. Walter approves of the company, but not of its culture, so the party is Josh (Bateman) and Clay's way of showing that their culture is great and that they treat employees like family. Simple and to the point. Of course, everything starts going to shit and, by the end of the film, the entire office ends up absolutely destroyed after everyone finds out that they're gonna get fired since the branch is closing down. Having said that, I will say that, to me, one of the faults definitely has to be how forced parts of the movie feel. By that, I mean the party gets way out of control. It starts out quite boring, before Clay inserts some energy into it and then they're off to the races. But, as I mentioned, it's quite a bit contrived in how they get to point A and then skip all the other letters to end up at Z. It happens immediately and, really, I don't buy things going this crazy this quickly. It's like the people here, all of a sudden, started acting like they were in Mad Max's universe. And I get that it gives the film an energetic and out-of-control vibe, but it just felt like too much happened in too short of a time span for it to be believable. All of this takes place during one day, basically. Though, if I'm being fair, this isn't the only film that I've seen where too much takes place in too short of a time period. It is what it is, but I can't really overlook it. Having said that, I still had fun watching this movie. I don't really even know what it is. Because, if this had been any other day of the week or I haven't been through a terrible week where a loved one has been in the hospital for something that will change her life forever, then I probably would have been more critical. But, maybe, I was just more 'susceptible' to what this film had to offer. Who the fuck knows? All I know is that the film has a great cast and, clearly, they were having a blast and, to me, that's always really important in a film like this. It's one of the most underrated qualities in a broad comedy as this one. If the actors are having fun, theoretically, that should rub off on the viewer. Of course, that's not always gonna be the case given that you have a wide variety of different people with different tastes that may not buy what you're selling but, for the most part, you hope that it ends up working. In my case, it did. Then again, as I said, I was probably more susceptible due to my emotional state and the fact that I enjoy a lot of the actors in this movie and they all did a very good job. Obviously, it's not like I'd say that the scripting is great shakes or anything of the sort. But, if you were gonna slack on the script, you picked the best cast to do it with. Not that I would ever condone not putting in the effort to produce a strong script, it's just that it's easier to make mistakes because you have such a talented cast to, hopefully, elevate the material. They do elevate it, but it's not like this is gonna be any sort of Christmas classic. They weren't shooting for that, though. They were attempting to be a solid diversion and, to me, that's exactly what it offered. I enjoyed this movie and I don't regret giving this three stars at all. I wouldn't say that you need to go out of your way to watch this, there's very few movies I'd actually say that for, but I had fun watching this movie. And, in the long run, that's all that matters. If you hated it, good for you. I liked it and you can't take that away from me, you fucking assholes. Ok, that escalated quickly. Seriously though, fun movie here.
jesse o Super Reviewer -
No doubt this movie has a great cast, it even has a more meaningful story than most comedies. There is just too much go in on and to much space in between laughs, it could have been much funnier. Good music and awesome comedians were the stand outs in this film.
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Extremely crude and vulgar, Office Christmas Party is completely lacking in the spirit of the season. In a last ditch effort to save his branch from being closed by his sister, Clay Vanstone attempts to land a major client by throwing a wild Christmas party. Jason Bateman, Olivia Munn, T. J. Miller, Kate McKinnon, and Jennifer Aniston lead the film's all-star cast; but none of the characters are all that interesting or likable. And the comedy is mostly made up of crude sexual and gross out humor. Additionally, whatever message about corporate culture that the film might be trying to make is lost. Office Christmas Party is an incredibly ugly and pointless comedy that hardly delivers any laughs.
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So upon reading about this movie, seeing the title and seeing the poster, I came to the conclusion that this was very possibly very similar to many American Christmas sitcom episodes that we've seen over the years (but naughtier). Indeed the whole premise and vibe felt very much like an episode of [i]Friends[/i] or more closely [i]The Office[/i], more so the latter. Nonetheless, being a comedy I was intrigued at the idea as I do enjoy a merry Xmas flick and the whole office scenario seemed like the perfect setting for some good solid filthy laughs. Essentially what you have here is this large company being run by a buffoon with good intentions (Clay played by T.J. Miller). His staff are generally hard working but include the various stereotypical types that you just know will turn up in something like this. Basically this particular branch of the company hasn't met its quarterly quota, and apparently this means instant terminations and possible shut down of the branch (familiar yet?). So its decided that the only way to try and get important clients is to hold a mega Christmas bash to show what kind of company they are. Naturally Carol the CEO (Jennifer Aniston) does not like this idea and puts the kibosh on it, naturally the minute she leaves for London Clay and co do it anyway. At first the shindig is a bust, but as the party slowly grows wilder and more riotous, things naturally get more and more hazardous and out of control for the few staff members we are following. And then just when things couldn't get any worse, Carol the CEO turns up because her flight was cancelled. So taking a quick look at the characters, what do we have? Well as I already said the branch manager Clay is a man who means well but is unfortunately incapable of running an entire office. He seems more interested in having a lark and acting like a child. His boss (and sister), Carol the CEO is of course a complete bitch, ruthless, strict, frustratingly sexy, seemingly never happy and jealous that their father apparently favoured Clay. Lower down the ranks there is Josh (Jason Bateman) who is your all round nice guy, gets on with everyone, is quite clever and is headhunted by Carol for her NYC office. Below Josh is Tracey who is head of tech, a hot female nerd basically. Then you have Mary (Kate McKinnon) who is a jobsworth and thoroughly frigid all round. Nate is yet another tech nerd but this time a full on stereotypical scrawny Asian/Indian nerd complete with thick rim glasses. Jeremy is a grouchy middle aged employee who kinda says what he thinks and has no tact. Then you have Allison who is a single mum and kinda desperate for any kind of relationship and Fred the newbie who has a baby fetish (wanting to be mothered like a baby). So yeah, all in all the characters don't really offer much in the realms of originality. Jennifer Aniston has literally already played the exact same role in 'Horrible Bosses', the only difference being she was a slutty evil bitch. Jason Bateman literally plays the exact same role he always plays in everything. That being an all round nice guy who gets on with everyone, the goodie, the likeable sensible character. While Kate McKinnon kinda goes against cast as the boring stick-in-the-mud, probably conservative and highly conformist, her character is nothing new. The same can be said for all the other characters who are generally made up by traditional nerds, sexy nerds, oddballs and angry people. You see that's the main problem here, this concept is old hat, its been done a million times, there isn't really much you can do with this that hasn't been seen before. To make matters worse the comedy is fast and loose missing targets left and right. Yeah Aniston is a sexy bitch, got it. Clay is a likeable moron who manages to host an awesome Xmas party, check. The party involves lots of idiotic visual gags such as chugging alcohol from an ice statues penis. Various people trying to do silly things, whilst drunk, and getting hurt badly (usually jumping off things). Knocking over a huge Christmas tree whilst inside an expensive department store. The uptight client they are trying to impress gets covered in cocaine, gets high and completely cuts loose turning into a party animal. Heck, how many times have we seen that plot angle? The uptight client is won over by the oddballs and becomes one of them. The party eventually gets so out of hand that illegal things are happening willy-nilly like launching items out of the windows (the office is inside a skyscraper). Where did the horses come from?? The movie actually becomes too stupid for its own good. At one point the drunken office folk shove an entire vending machine out of the building window, along with monitors and chairs. I mean sure, a party can get out of control with drugs, sex and booze, all within the realms of possibility. But when things like that start happening from the top end of a skyscraper, we're talking about people possibly getting killed below and police turning up, serious shit. Yet there are no apparent consequences here. A monitor falls and barely misses Aniston as she approaches the building...but she just shrugs it off as an annoying occurrence! Did I mention the horses? The one thing that did hit me whilst watching this, some Americans have amazing places to work! This office block is in downtown Chicago I believe, and boy is it impressive, the fecking views! The fact that people can work in a place like this (the interior was pretty amazing too) and consider it mundane seems unreal to a Brit like me. Also, Yanks know how to decorate for Christmas (or anything). I've known this from my own holidays, the Americans don't mess around when it comes to decor, it all looks stunning, and this film demonstrates just that. But anyway the movie, yeah its fine I guess. There are numerous sub plots going on with various characters throughout that are reasonably engaging I suppose, nothing special. Usual stuff really, relationship forging, sex, hired prostitutes, revenge, a car chase and finally everything ending happily as the office is saved (because of course). I didn't wanna say it but its essentially a movie length version of [i]The Office[/i], uncut. A late in the day total rampage of stereotypes we've all seen before.
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