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Lock up the copier, ‘Office Christmas Party’ is here

Jennifer Aniston, Olivia Munn, Jason Bateman, and T.J. Miller are among the stars in “Office Christmas Party.”Glen Wilson/Paramount Pictures/Paramount Pictures

Of course someone finally made a movie called “Office Christmas Party.” How could they not, given all the camera-ready bad behavior commonly associated with these holiday ragers? The mistletoe-goaded sloppy clinches? The nog-fueled, unfiltered remarks to bosses and co-workers? The inevitable juvenile defilement of the copy machine? For purveyors of R-rated comedy, it has to be a lowbrow, high-concept dream. Unforgettable inappropriateness is what they’re always shooting for, right?

It’s surprising, then, to see what a listless bacchanal we get from directors Will Speck and Josh Gordon (“Blades of Glory”) and their stacked cast. Jason Bateman, Jennifer Aniston, T.J. Miller (“Silicon Valley”), and colleagues aren’t a chore to watch, but they don’t get up to much that’s inspired, either – just a sly comment from Bateman here, a fun bit of loopiness from Miller there. They’re supposed to be living out a night destined to be the stuff of company legend, but audiences will be hard pressed to retain much. (Aniston’s amusingly vicious exchange with a little girl in an airport lounge is an exception, but it’s a scene mostly designed to keep her back-burnered character involved in the story.)

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Josh (Bateman) is a capable if slightly beleaguered tech company manager whose easygoing style meshes with the scattered magnanimity of his corporate-scion boss, Clay (Miller). Unfortunately, their business approach doesn’t fly with Clay’s hard-driving sister (Aniston), who turns up at their Chicago office threatening sweeping cuts. They’ll get a reprieve if they can somehow land a big client they’ve been eyeing, but the client’s rep (Courtney B. Vance) isn’t encouraging. The answer: an unprecedented holiday blowout to impress Vance’s character, a closet partier.

What follows is all pretty predictable, from the ill-advised staircase tobogganing to the fake snow mixed up with real blow. Kate McKinnon plays a dowdy H.R. head who cuts loose, and the office geek (Karan Soni) turns to a killer-pimp service to conjure up his fictitious squeeze.

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This last angle had us thinking back to “Risky Business,” as did the Chicago setting and the reveling gone off the rails. Here, though, there’s no edge to the wildness, nothing memorable. Oh, well, at least the movie’s raunchy variation on that trusty copier gag might stick with us.

★ ½
OFFICE CHRISTMAS PARTY

Directed by Will Speck, Josh Gordon. Written by Justin Malen, Laura Solon. Starring Jason Bateman, T.J. Miller, Jennifer Aniston, Olivia Munn, Kate McKinnon. At Boston Common, Fenway, suburbs. 105 minutes. R (crude sexual content and language throughout, drug use, graphic nudity).


Tom Russo can be reached at trusso2222@gmail.com.