By Patricia Ducey. Horrible Bosses, is not, well, horrible – it’s what I call a Friday Night Movie, one best seen, if at all, after Happy Hour with your work chums in a theater filled with other people who have done the same. Laughter is infectious, and a slight buzz often helps that along. A way-too-serious and gross first half gives way to some real laughs in the second half, and the ingenious script does at times truly surprise and delight. But Bosses never does rise above a grade of ‘C,’ due to its 3-4 rating on the Apatow Scale (zero being no F-bombs or raunchiness; 5 being F-bombs/raunchiness equal to an Apatow movie). Most of the time, the raunchiness here is just a distraction from dumb writing, as becomes apparent.
Hapless, harried office workers Nick (Jason Bateman), Kurt (Jason Sudeikis) and Dale (Charlie Day) work in their own private hells, victims of their unbearable bosses: Kevin Spacey as Nick’s manipulative, Machiavellian boss at a financial firm, Colin Farrell (whose physical transformation from sexy Irishman to cheeseball cokehead is astounding) as Kurt’s bete noir manager at a chemical company, and Jennifer Aniston as Dale’s sex-obsessed, harassing boss/dentist.
After a few beers one night, the trio decides that a well planned murder of these three villains is the answer to their problems, so they head downtown to the nastiest bar they can find to hire a hit man. There they find Jamie Foxx, a “murder consultant” who gives them a general outline of a plan (cribbed from movie plots) in exchange for five grand. Later, after discussion and soul searching, they hit upon a variation of the consultant’s plan and decide to forge ahead. After all, they have watched enough movies and Law & Order episodes to guarantee they can concoct a foolproof crime … or crimes! In other words, they are idiots – and with reasoning like theirs, you can guess that all does not proceed smoothly. Soon the guys are running into and from cops, killers, and overly amorous women. Hilarity occasionally ensues.
The three co-conspirators play amusingly off each other; Jason Bateman, though, is again restrained and deadpan here – I would love to see a director allow him let loose with his charm and intelligence just once. Jason Sudeikis and Charley Day prove amiable, goofy counterparts to Bateman, and Donald Sutherland and TV cop Wendell Pierce have amusing cameos. And speaking of cameos, this must be the first movie in which a Navigator voice in a Prius plays such an important and funny role in the plot. Otherwise, Kevin Spacey exhibits lots of dramatic intensity but misses the comedic touch here, while Colin Farrell and Jennifer Aniston are suitably funny/gross.
Horrible Bosses is not really a black comedy, as some have termed it; eventually, some measure of moral order is restored to this wacked out universe. I won’t say more, but the resolution does offset some of the gratuitous raunch, so it’s more screwball than edgy. So for anyone who has worked in some boss’s hell—and who hasn’t?—it may provide some vicarious fun. If you are tired of cartoon movies or Twilight-like heavy sighs, or you’re going out after work next Friday with your boys, it might do.
Posted on July 17th, 2011 at 5:41pm.
You’re correct, it’s not horrible and that’s the best you can say about it.
That’s so true!