Melusi Nkosi (Kabomo Vilakazi), the merciless new leader at mining company AMI, takes some extreme cost-cutting measures that put the three heroes of Office Invasion in financial peril: geologist Sam (Rea Rangaka) can’t afford medication for his ailing daughter, accountant Prince (Kiroshan Naidoo) needs to stay in the finance department for five years to get access to his trust fund and therefore escape his tyrannical father’s hold on him, and security guard Junior (Sechaba Ramphele), frustrated by his mooching flatmates, just needs to make ends meet.
Melusi sells the South African business to an international firm represented by a patently duplicitous trio consisting of Gregory (Greg Viljoen), a chipper Australian with bad hair, Badrick (Stevel Marc), a Jamaican ready to throw down, and Anya (Aimee Ntuli), a conniving Eastern European.
The desperate heroes hatch a plan to steal some Zulcanoid, the liquid metal at AMI mines, and then sell it to a Chinese gangster who says he’s going to use it for benevolent purposes.
Overarching all of this is an impending alien invasion, implied by the attack that opens the film and toward which it builds. It takes a long time – too long, in my opinion – before the aliens appear.
The film’s primary shortcoming is its lack of humour stemming from an imbalance in characters: while the leads lack the eccentricity that would have made them more compelling, the secondary characters’ performances feel overblown and derivative. The outrageously idiotic Paul (aka Knobface), for instance, is clearly a rip-off of Brick (Steve Carell) in the Anchorman series.
The protagonists have their moments, the best of which involve Prince and Junior showing their frustration. Prince has visions of extreme violence, but they seem tossed into the film for no other reason than to shock the viewer.
Most of the scenarios in which the trio finds themselves end up feeling stagnant. When Junior loses his gun as part of the cost cuts, he gets sent to a training session where a supposed-to-be-funny-but-not-funny overly serious instructor shows security guards how to defend themselves with typical office supplies.
Office Invasion plays the typical, stale feel-good cards like victims revolting against corporate oppressors and putting the needs of others before personal needs. Yawn.—Douglas J. Ogurek **
No comments:
Post a Comment