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★★★★☆
9 August 2019
A movie review of CORPORATE ANIMALS. |
“You signed your releases. Let’s go bone some stone,” Brandon (Ed Helms)
Little talked about director Patrick Brice has made two intentionally awkward horror movies (CREEP [2014] and CREEP 2 [2017]), and an intentionally awkward relationship comedy (THE OVERNIGHT [2015]). Here he deals with office politics, and brings his brand of spry awkwardness. I recommend his oeuvre. CORPORATE ANIMALS looks at (business) incompetence, greedy management, and passive-aggressiveness on a team-building excursion. It is hilarious. So many jokes. So many targets.
Cinema should be tackling what it is like to have a soul-destroying job in an office, warehouse, factory, delivery gig, etc. The idea of trickle-down economics is a bad joke. No matter how much capital an individual/organisation has, and no matter how many brilliant ideas, the most valuable commodity is that business entity’s labour force. Those ideas cannot come to fruition without its workers. And they should share in the profits. Not just management hogging the wealth and credit. CORPORATE ANIMALS has that in its cross hairs without being preachy.
Little talked about director Patrick Brice has made two intentionally awkward horror movies (CREEP [2014] and CREEP 2 [2017]), and an intentionally awkward relationship comedy (THE OVERNIGHT [2015]). Here he deals with office politics, and brings his brand of spry awkwardness. I recommend his oeuvre. CORPORATE ANIMALS looks at (business) incompetence, greedy management, and passive-aggressiveness on a team-building excursion. It is hilarious. So many jokes. So many targets.
Cinema should be tackling what it is like to have a soul-destroying job in an office, warehouse, factory, delivery gig, etc. The idea of trickle-down economics is a bad joke. No matter how much capital an individual/organisation has, and no matter how many brilliant ideas, the most valuable commodity is that business entity’s labour force. Those ideas cannot come to fruition without its workers. And they should share in the profits. Not just management hogging the wealth and credit. CORPORATE ANIMALS has that in its cross hairs without being preachy.
Lucy (Demi Moore) owns and is head of an edible cutlery business. A poor manager, she only cares about the superficial and superfluous, rather than the substantial. Over a disastrous team-building exercise, in the middle of nowhere, the dam breaks on her employees’ resentments. Lucy is the type of boss who steals her underling’s ideas while playing the workforce off against each other. Demi Moore demos her significant skills at playing a sociopath. Lucy makes THE OFFICE’s David Brent look like a virtuoso in comparison.
Choosing advanced caving, even though her team are non-cavers, the trip is run by another incompetent, Brandon. The entire group gets trapped in a New Mexico underground system after a tremor. Like a claustrophobic play, unarticulated bitterness slowly gets articulated. Various douchey behaviour rises to the surface, as we see who can handle the fear. There is Billy (Dan Bakkedahl), an energy vampire (see WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS television series), a doom-monger extraordinaire. Freddie (Karan Soni) and Jess (Jessica Williams) tear strips off each other endlessly. Phrases bandied about include “hate sponge” and “Freddie the f*ck toy”. Lucy opines that feminism is women being able to be as horrible as men. The massive inappropriateness is part of the hilarity.
One wondered during proceedings if the narrative would turn towards the cave horror of THE DESCENT [2005] or the comedy-horror of SEVERANCE [2006]. For the squeamish, yes there is a little jokey gore, but no monsters are involved (beyond THE WALKING DEAD-style human immorality). The guiltily enjoyable feeling in your stomach will be the anticipation of how petty the ensemble can be, and what depths Lucy will plough. The wit ranges from the political to the gross-out. You of course won’t be able to look away.