In case you missed it … ‘He Was a Quiet Man’

I hesitated watching this for a while. It’s been on my Netflix queue for a couple months, but whenever it got close to the top, I ended up bumping it back down again. I really couldn’t say whether it was due to the fatc that I now work in an office environment and didn’t want to fill my head with such possibilities, or if it were the fact that Christian Slater has been virtually MIA for so long. Maybe it’s a combination of both, but I’m fairly glad I finally broke down and watched this somewhat quirky dark comedy about office politics and the potential violence that can sometimes occur as a result of mixing crumby bosses and annoying co-workers with a mentally unstable employee.

Slater plays Bob Maconel, a lowly lump of a man working on the bottom rungs of the corporate ladder. It’s actually a very different role for Slater as I usually picture him as Robert Boyd in ‘Very Bad Things’ … Bob gets dumped on by everyone, this boss, that boss, more ambitious co-workers and even the office slut, who threatens to turn him into HR at one point because he “accidentally” glimpsed down her blouse as she picked up some files she dropped in front of him. Bob’s only friend in this sad, pathetic life that he leads is his goldfish, who in his slightly delusional mind, speak to him… then again, even they question him on a daily basis as to why he hasn’t gone ahead and followed through with his plans to end his sorry life by taking out the worst six people at his job, one for each of his six bullets that he religiously places into the revolver in his desk until he chickens out, every day. Yep, even the fish are against poor Bob.

The only thing keeping Bob from completely flipping his cool is his infatuation with attractive co-worker Vanessa (Elisha Cuthbert) who barely knows he exists. One day, Bob finally thinks he’s grown the balls to carry out his big exit when in his hesitation the second biggest loser in the office stands up and starts blowing people away. On the floor under his desk, Bob rises to hsi feet once the shooting ends. He sees the shooter standing right before him and they enter into a casual conversation regarding what had just happened and why… then, as the other shooter is about to finish off the badly wounded Vanessa, Bob pumps all six rounds from his gun into the assailant. Instantly, Bob goes from being the quiet guy who shocked us all to the loser who becomes a hero. In the aftermath, Bob is given a cushy corporate job as VP of Creative thinking by his two-faced boss played by William H. Macy. Vanessa survives but is left a quadriplegic from the bullet wound to her spine, eventually becoming close with Bob now that she sees him as both a hero and more than just some loser at the office. However, things begin to get hairy when Bob finds out that Vanessa isn’t exactly the “type” of girl he thought she was.

Slater is surpringly convincing in the role, even if the performance comes off as a variation on the Slater personality. The occasional quirkiness factor of the film adds some well-received color, reminding me of shows like ‘Ally McBeal’ and ‘Dead Like Me’. The odd thing is that anyone who works in an office environment can definitely relate to the antics that take place, however not to the exagerated extreme that they occur, I hope… and I certainly hope no one reading this relates too closely with Bob. Overall, an enjoyable and entertaining, occasionally touching story with an unexpected, almost Lynchian ending that will throw you through a loop, leaving plenty of room for discussion after film ends.