Unrated Slacker Comedy Is This Generation’s Office Space

By Robert Scucci
| Published 16 seconds ago

No matter where you’re from, you probably grew up with somebody like Marty (Joshua Burge) from 2014’s Buzzard. While you went to college or joined the workforce, or at the very least tried to make something of yourself, Marty wants nothing to do with the rat race. The problem is he’s not smart enough to scrape by without resorting to criminal activity. He’s the kind of guy who would stage a slip and fall at a fast food restaurant just to get a $500 payout three years later, thinking he stuck it to the man and came out on top.

Buzzard explores this behavior to the extreme, one scam, pizza coupon, and Nintendo controller at a time. It’s the ultimate slacker comedy because Marty cares about self-preservation just enough to stay out of serious trouble, but not enough to stop himself from constantly getting hoisted by his own petard. It’s Office Space for the disenfranchised Millennial. It’s a slacker comedy with a nihilistic bent. It’s the $20 plate of hotel spaghetti that keeps you going until you can find more Mountain Dew to sustain yourself. 

It’s Always A Party With Marty

Buzzard, like most films written and directed by Joel Potrykus and starring Joshua Burge, centers on Marty, an office temp at a mortgage company who’s always looking for the next scheme to help him coast through life. He lives off frozen pizzas he gets at a discount by calling customer service to complain after every meal, scoring coupons in return. He steals toner, staplers, telephones, and keyboards from the company dumpster and returns them to office supply stores for cash. He opens bank accounts for the free $50 deposit, withdraws the funds, and then does it again. It’s not beneath him to cut his hand at home, show up to work, and stage an accident with the paper slicer so he can file a worker’s comp claim.

Marty decides to ante up when he realizes he can steal customer refund checks, sign them over to himself, and cash them at the bank. Never thinking about the consequences, he quickly learns the company receives monthly check-cashing reports, complete with images of the checks and the accounts they were deposited into.

Fearing he’s about to get caught red-handed, Marty lays low at his friend and coworker Derek’s (Joel Potrykus) house while trying to figure out his next move. If you haven’t noticed by now, planning ahead is not Marty’s strong suit. For reasons never explained, he modifies an old Nintendo Power Glove with steak knives, a la Freddy Kreuger, and carries it with him everywhere. Just in case. 

The rest of the movie plays out exactly how you’d expect. Marty tries cashing checks, but every bank flags his account. He tries breaking into a motel to sleep for free and immediately gets caught. He burns through the last of his money with no backup plan other than continuing to live exactly how he wants. The problem is he’s running out of options, and his increasingly sloppy crimes are catching up to him.

Marty Will Never Learn

What’s most fascinating about Buzzard is how deeply the slacker DNA is embedded in Marty. No matter what happens, he finds a way out of a jam, and he doesn’t care how pathetic it makes him look. When called out for his “worksite injury,” he shrugs and waits for it to blow over while the doctor stares him down, clearly not buying it. When he’s finally backed into a corner where the authorities might get involved, he busts out the Power Glove in a desperate attempt to fend off his problems. When he spends his last $20 on hotel spaghetti, he shovels it down without a single thought about where his next meal will come from.

Marty is every slacker you’ve ever met, all rolled into one composite character. He’s impulsive, repulsive, and never sympathetic. But that’s also what makes Buzzard so much fun to watch, because you end up rooting for him anyway. He’s screwing the system every chance he gets, or so he thinks, and part of you wants to live vicariously through that because he genuinely does not give a single sh*t. It’s almost inspiring how little he cares about anything, whether it’s his friendships, job security, or reputation. None of it matters to Marty.

It’s the kind of personality you envy in small doses, if only because you know you could never carry yourself with that level of nonchalance while still functioning as a productive member of society.

Consequences Be Damned

Half the fun of watching Buzzard is wondering when Marty’s run will finally end, and how many people he’d be willing to drag down with him if it means squeezing out one more free Party Pizza before getting hauled off to jail, flipping his boss the bird on the way out. Even if he does face consequences, you get the sense he’ll find a way to keep scamming his way through life.

That’s what makes Buzzard so compelling. Marty puts more effort into avoiding responsibility than it would take to just show up, do the bare minimum, and live comfortably. That’s the real irony, because everything he does looks exhausting.

As of this writing, Buzzard is streaming for free on Tubi.