1985’s corporate satire Head Office is one of those frustrating films that has flashes of brilliance undermined by conventionality and substandard writing. The first ten minutes or so are bitingly hilarious, then the rest of the film mostly settles into predictability and tedium, going completely off the rails by the third act.

After a stale 80s comedy opening in which Judge Reinhold misses most of his commencement to have sex with a co-ed, we get a brilliant segment of concentrated corporate absurdism. Reinhold’s first day at the office involves his being shuffled between would-be bosses as one gets fired for insider trading, another dies of a heart attack, and the third is blacklisted for being terminally ill. The three bosses are played, respectively, by Danny DeVito, Rick Moranis, and Wallace Shawn in their prime, who are pretty much only present in this one sequence. We get things like DeVito finding out that his corruption’s been exposed and he’s about to be fired because he reads it on the front page while stuck in a traffic jam, forcing him to crawl out of the cab to run to the office to try to save his job, or Moranis cycling through calls on hold: two angry executives and his grieving wife are made to wait while he takes a call from his mechanic regarding his sports car. It’s a whirlwind ride of sleaze, greed, cynicism, and backstabbing that makes for top-grade comedy, and which the rest of the film utterly fails to live up to.

Reinhold then settles into a job fielding complaints in which he falls for a pretty protester who turns out to be the daughter of the CEO (a fact that basically affects nothing). Because of course the heroine has to be a lefty protestor with idealistic notions that prove justified.

That’s part of the problem; the film tries to take sides and offer a positive alternative, which makes it come across as just naive and preachy.

For instance, her big issue is that a manufacturing plant in Anytown, USA is being shut down because the jobs are being moved overseas for cheaper labour. Her proposal is for the company to sell the plant to the workers so they can run it themselves. The film presents this unironically as something that would definitely work and be a net positive.

Instead of that, imagine that the company had taken a look at the idea and asked her if the workers have any experience running the plant, any marketing apparatus, any prospective contracts, etc. And then agreed to the proposal, only to easily out-price and out-compete the plant into the ground anyway. Because the workers were basically offering to pay this multi-national mega-corp to create an out-priced, inexperienced competitor.

That would have been both pretty funny and show that the writers actually knew what they were talking about. Instead we just get tired commie talking points pushing a definite political agenda (reinforced by an admittedly-amusing joke where one of the guest speakers just delivers one of Hitler’s speeches: “This man’s speaking in German.” “I never listen to these guys anyway”).

There’s also a bit where Jane Seymour, who plays a female executive sleeping her way to the top, laments that “when men do it, they’re called ‘tough’. Women get called bitches or worse”. The obvious answer to which being “What the men do improves the company’s bottom line and showcases strategic acumen. What you do showcases that you’re played by Jane Seymour, which doesn’t benefit the company in any way.”

Contrast this with Network, the gold-standard of corporate satire, which presents the communist revolutionaries as just as corruptible as anyone else (“Man, give her the f****** overhead clause!”) and Faye Dunaway really has no one to blame but herself for being what she is.

The best part, outside the opening, is Reinhold’s mentor, Max (played by Richard Masur), who is friendly, but completely dead inside and just rolls with everything and anything the company orders. He’s one of the few consistently funny elements throughout.

So, there’s the summary: one part good corporate satire, about four parts lame Lefty talking points. That opening sequence (about up to when DeVito jumps out the window) is definitely worth watching, but the rest can be skipped.

Oh, and for the record, the secretary trying to cancel Moranis’s meetings following his heart attack should have been the love interest (“He’s dead.” “Well, let’s make it after lunch.” “After lunch is just as bad”).