Office Christmas Party (2016)

Elevator Pitch: The CEO of Zenotek, daughter of the owner is breathing fire due to the failure of the Chicago branch to perform. She bans the Christmas Party and threatens to shut them down, but her brother, the manager of the branch, has a plan to gain a new client, who agrees to buy their stuff, but requires him to prove that they are a company loyal to its employees. Answer, reinstate the party, invite the client but don’t tell Carol the CEO. The party goes ahead, but goes completely wild when the staff find out that they might be going to be sacked.

Content: Well! What did it not contain? One of the geeky staff members tries to impress his co-workers by hiring a prostitute, pretending she is his girlfriend. This girl accidentally spills cocaine into a indoor snowblower making the event even more cheerful, until the client tries to swing across the room on the christmas lights. There is more madness, with some male and female nudity, and people photocopying their bits and in one case making a 3D copy of a penis. So obviously a lot of drinking, drug taking and smoking but no actual sex.

A View: I really thought this was fun, and admirable for its embrace of rudeness, as opposed to not quite getting there. If it had a failing it was that in the end there was too much going on, so it was difficult to follow what was happening to the characters we had come to quite like.  The critics did not like it much, although I have to say that even the negative review by the Roger Ebert writer would still have made me quite keen to see it. So I would say that if you like a bit of real gross out humour watch it as a Christmas film, accompanied by a few beers.

Additional Info: The writers also put together “The Hangover” and sequels .