'Standards of Ethical Conduct'
Ah, the trapped life in the blah of corporate life. Sitting in a cloth walled box, listening to platitudes and slogans wondering how you got here and hoping for your soul to survive another all-employee meeting. While you stew on that fellow corporate sellout, Roman Hardgrave has given us something to ease the pain, courtesy of his featurette, Standards of Ethical Conduct.
Filmed in Denver, Standards resembles an Office Space-esque take on the doldrums of gray-washed life in Corporate America with one noticeable difference: It's focused and hilarious.
Starring Damon Guerrasio as Heff, a 29-year-old white-collar worker trying to carve out a little space for himself in his burgeoning career. After his initial interview with the leadsloganeer Mr. Chester (Robert Bottelsen Jr.), Heff thinks he just scored a great job as an analyst within FCT. However, when the firm conducts its background check for security clearance, his stoner roommates (one of which is the hilarious Chuck Roy, Comedy Works regular and Film on the Rocks host) do what stoner roommates tend to do, tragically foil his hopes, busting Heff to the low-rung of the corporate ladder as a ho-hum folder-fetcher.
Heff's work life is a fist-full of annoyances with a steady diet of faceless bureaucracy and typical HR-orchestrated hallow political correctness.FCT, which appears to dabble in national security, was recently purchased by the larger and presumably bloated URBM, which has turned the small company into a satellite drone with the force-feeding of procedural dogma. Hardgrave fills the film characters you'd see in normal corporate life. From those relentless company flag wavers to the guys who are there purely to earn a wage and go home, life in Standards is eerily close to the khaki swamp yet infuses witty and memorable scenes and dialogue without the distracting, over-the-top fantasy elements (i.e. removing a cube wall,de-boning a fish on your desk), which beautifully works to the movie's advantage.
Heartfelt and endearing, Standards of Ethical Conduct promises 45 minutes where the audience will not be FCT.
Check out the premiere of Roman Hardgrave's Standards of Ethical Conduct at the Bug Theatre on June 6th at 8pm. Purchase tickets here.
View the trailer below:
Comments
Saw this movie at the premiere. Very funny - laughed out loud at how how close to home it hits. Recommended!
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