Kabluey, which was recently released o DVD after a brief run in theaters, is supposed to be a comedy, which given the state that its characters are in makes a statement right there. Almost ten years ago, Office Space captured an economic landscape where people had to rely on a soldierly camaraderie to keep from going insane at their shit jobs. In Kabluey, there's no camaraderie: an invisible bubble seems to have been lowered around each individual character, cutting off their ability to reach out or even empathize with their fellow sufferers, and it's everyone for himself. The movie starts with Leslie (Lisa Kudrow), who is as good as marooned in her cluttered Texas home, trying to watch over her two small sons while her husband is off in Iraq, getting his tour of duty endlessly extended. If Leslie doesn't go back to work, she's about toe get her health benefits cut off, but she can't afford day care, so she reluctantly calls in her husband's brother, Salman, a doofus and loser who is played by the movie's writer-director, Scott Prendergast. He, in turn, answers a job offer and finds himself reporting to a hollowed-out building--construction was completed just before the Internet company that paid for it hit the skids--where a harried woman (Conchata Ferrell) explains that he's part of a modest boondoggle, being used to burn off cash set aside to attract attention to the doomed company. In quick order, she stuffs him into a blue , top-heavy, foam-rubber costume that makes him look like a penis at half-mast and deposits him on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, with a pile of flyers announcing the availability of office space tucked under his arm. She's almost out of sight before it occurs to her to stop the car and yell, "You need a ride back?"
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