10 Sarcastic Movie Pricks You Can't Help But Love
7. Bill Lumbergh - Office Space
You can just go right ahead..
Though perhaps not strictly sarcasm, Lumbergh's comedy has a certain raillery and ridicule which feels suitably self-mocking to make the list. And how could any list of comedy film characters be feel complete without the original David Brent?
Surely the ultimate caricature of corporate management, Lumbergh is the boss of a sub-division of mega-computer company Initech. His way of speaking and his floundering attempts at badinage are actually rather poetic. Lumbergh's tone is one of a boss who must address his dense minions but only if it can be directed in officially ambiguous corporate-speak.
"Hello Peter, what's happening?" There is such a patronizing superiority to Lumbergh's communications it feels like he's reading from a How-to-Micro-Manage-for-Dummies book. Remember all that horrendous vanity? Lumbergh's pretentious slacks, shirt-cuffs, his hairstyle, his Porsche- yes his Porsche with the registration plates "MY PRSHE".
And what exactly did Lumbergh do? He hovered around cubicles, he had such an intense focus on the paper trail of the offices every activity, always chasing the latest Memo or TPS report, Lumbergh glided through the office like a Victorian taskmaster. But it was Lumbergh's gloriously repeated and evermore disparaging that'd be great that rendered his every office encounter as comedy gold.
Lumbergh and his stock phrases become so omnipresent in Peter's mind he even appears in his dreams, this time screwing his girlfriend You can just go ahead and move a little bit to the left. Yeah, that's it. Great
And Lumbergh is a great comedy character because so many of us who have worked in office have experience line managers who seem stuck in this odd world of stock phrases, linguistic emptiness and insubstantial silliness. Lumbergh is the micromanager who clearly read every aspect of the training memo; inflexible, non-confrontational, oddly coercive.
Lumbergh; "Milt, we're gonna need to go ahead and move you downstairs into storage B."
Okay its not strictly sarcasm, but it's still funny.