Starring: Jason Bateman, Charlie Day, Jason Sudeikis, Kevin Spacey, Jennifer Aniston, Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx
Directed By: Seth Gordon
Story By: Michael Markowitz
Screenplay By: John Francis Daley and Jonathan M. Goldstein
Produced By: Brett Ratner and Jay Stern
Distributor: Warner Bros.
Rating: R
Running Time: Approximately 98 minutes
Website: horriblebossesmovie.warnerbros.com
Budget: $40 million
Genre: Comedy
Release Date: July 8, 2011
As its surprisingly straightforward title suggests, Horrible Bosses is about… horrible bosses. It’s a premise familiar to anyone who has ever been on the other side of that desk or counter: if you could get away with killing your boss, would you? It’s all daydreams, of course, frustration at the daily grind taken out on our supervisors and superiors. But what if your boss wasn’t just the necessary jerk, the jerk who gets things done, the jerk who has to be the bad guy sometimes, but truly, actually deserved it?
Consider the three hapless friends in Horrible Bosses. Nick (Jason Bateman) has spent the better part of a decade climbing the corporate ladder under the heel of the demanding, manipulative Dave Harken (Kevin Spacey). Kurt (Jason Sudeikis of Saturday Night Live) must deal with Bobby (Colin Farrell), the drug-addled son of his late mentor at the chemical disposal company where he works. Dale (Charlie Day of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”) has a different set of problems with his boss, Julia (Jennifer Aniston), a sex-crazed dentist with an uncomfortable eye on Dale. Plot reasons prevent each man from quitting his miserable job, and a chance encounter with an old classmate at a bar gets the three friends thinking about ways to get even. They arrive at one solution: murder. With the help of an ex-con played by Jamie Foxx, whose name cannot be listed here (okay: it rhymes with “Futher Mucker”) , the three friends plot to kill each other’s bosses, Strangers on a Train-style. It’s rare that one can write the phrase “wackiness ensues” to describe a plot and mean it sincerely, but that is exactly what happens: wackiness does, in fact, ensue.
As the titular bosses, Aniston, Farrell, and Spacey are clearly having a ball as cartoonish monsters. Spacey plays a twitchier variation of the viper executive he played in Swimming with Sharks. Farrell, nearly unrecognizable with an unconvincing comb-over and considerable gut, hams it up as the despicable Bobby (he urges Kurt to fire a co-worker in a wheelchair because “they” him “uncomfortable”). Aniston’s Julia, aside from instigating toe-curling workplace encounters that would make Clarence Thomas blush, aggressively blackmails Dale and messes around with anesthetized patients for kicks. These bosses aren’t mere bullies, they are genuine psychopaths.
There’s something calculated in the raunchy hijinks of Horrible Bosses, a movie formula culled from other successful shock comedies. One can imagine the Hollywood pitch meeting where Horrible Bosses is described as “The Hangover meets Office Space,” and that’s about as succinct a comparison as there is, right down to the three buddies in way over their heads in potentially criminal enterprise. Horrible Bosses relies just as heavily on raunchy comedy as its R-rated peers, with plenty of sex, drugs, depravity, and just about any –ism you can name. In Hollywood, doing something new is almost as good as doing the same old thing without anybody noticing. The screenwriters, along with director Seth Gordon, have long television resumes behind them, and the broad approach of TV comedy is evident as the three men’s plans descend further and further into farce. It helps that Bateman, Sudeikis, and Day—themselves TV comedy veterans–are such skilled comic actors that their chemistry and timing cover any comedic and storytelling sins. All three actors play character types they’ve played before. Bateman might as well be the same put-upon everyman from “Arrested Development;” Day is the same spineless schmuck he plays on “It’s Always Sunny”, and Sudeikis does… whatever he usually does on “Saturday Night Live,” but with more jokes about cocaine and rape. The trio’s interaction, matched with their bosses’ evocative personalities, keeps things lively.
Horrible Bosses goes to great lengths to ratchet up the outrageousness. Too many comedies confuse blunt obviousness with humor, but the movie circumvents that by actually being pretty funny. All of the actors are obviously having a good time, and for once that translates on-screen. It’s crude, gross, and wildly insensitive, but of the school of “smart-dumb” movies that are pandering in the most knowing, intelligent way possible. Horrible Bosses is unlikely to reach the same heights as the type of frat-boy comedies it imitates. However, as brazen knock-offs go, it’s a delirious, unpredictable foray into fantasy made real and made very, very wrong.
2.5 Stars
