Horrible Bosses (**)
Directed by: Jason Bateman, Charlie Day, Jason Sudeikis, Jennifer
Aniston, Colin Farrell, Kevin Spacey, Jamie Foxx, Donald Sutherland
Seen: July 22nd 2011
** Out of ****
Another in the new slew of R-rated Hollywood comedies, Horrible Bosses
doesn’t do much for the genre – even though it is better and funnier than the
two Hangover movies. While the movie is funny, the makers however need to learn
that crass doesn’t necessarily make for humour, as some of the attempts at
humour falls flat on its face; a good thing though is that the humour hit-rate
is better than many movies out there, and that while crass, it isn’t as overtly
offensively crass as the Hangover movies.
Nick (Bateman), and Dale (Day) have the worst kinds of bosses you
could possibly imagine, even in caricature. Just as soon as Curt (Sudeikis), the
third member of their group of friends, feels things look good for him his boss
Jack (Sutherland) has a tragic accident, promoting his horrible son Bobby
(Farrell) to head of the company. Nick’s boss Dave (Spacey) is the tyranical
false and manipulative motivational kind, taking all the praise and accolades
for Nick’s ridiculous hours of work. Dale’s boss is the shockingly sex-crazed
dentist Julia (Aniston), harassing Dale to the point of pushing the three
towards a very debatable, but in the case of these rotten human beings,
understandable decision – to kill them. Their first attempt at hiring help
fails woefully, but on their second attempt they find MF Jones (Foxx), a
deranged looking tattooed ex-con.
While watching the movie the plot flows regularly evenly and with
decent pace to a believable conclusion for all the protagonists involved. In retrospect
however, a few things rise to the surface as not much more than cheap cop-outs,
which has a major impact on my feel around the movie, but it’s something most
wouldn’t even notice. Jason Bateman is one of the better comedic actors I’ve
seen in the past 10 years, with comedic timing that can break even the
staunchest non-believers’ defences. Charlie Day and Jason Sudeikis are both
entertaining and sufficiently over-the-top, and Jamie Foxx is a force to be
reckoned with in any role he takes on. The so-called bad-guys? Kevin Spacey
eats the scenery as the corrupt executive and Colin Farrell awakes hatred in
his blatant disregard for sensibility and good taste while Jennifer Aniston
surprises heavily in her radical breakaway from just about everything she’s
ever done.
Horrible Bosses will deceive a lot, as the trailer gives nowhere near
an indication of the raunchiness employed. The movie is funny and has some
pretty unexpected moments delivering laughs and even frights, and all the
actors bring their A-game to the kind of movie where it can be so easy to
simply dial in performances. If you enjoyed the Hangover movies, this will fall
straight within your style of comedy; but if, like me, you didn’t, this will
still not impress too much, although there is much more redeemable content than
in The Hangover.
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