Director: Seth Gordan
Cast: Jason Bateman, Charlie Day, Jason Sudeikis, Jenifer Aniston, Colin Farrell, Kevin Spacey,
Certification: 15
Synopsis: Tired of being worked to the bone, heckled, bullied and sexually harassed by their horrible bosses, three friends with no way out concoct a plan to murder their employers. Its that simple.
With the subject matter in the title and it’s simple premise it would be easy to file HORRIBLE BOSSES into the goofball absurdity category and be done with it – true the film is very much this – but its also a little more. With astute comedic scripting, excellent turns by all involved and a moreish on-screen chemistry between the three leads HORRIBLE BOSSES is a better than average comic farce, peppered with chuckles throughout and popping you right in the chops with a fair few corkers.
Resorting to murder may seem a tad hasty however the film does a great job of setting the scene and immediately gets us onside with our characters and their dilemmas’. Bateman, Sudeikis and Day are all nice guys whose lives are pretty good, however circumstances at work take a turn for the worse making their situations unbearable. An unpleasant encounter with an old school friend makes it pretty clear why they can’t just quit their jobs and escape, and so a drunken hypothetical conversion about murder turns into a reality.
Farrell plays the douche bag very well
Each boss is horrendous in his or her own way. Kevin Spacey (who can do no wrong in THNs’ eyes) is an asshole with a superiority complex and revels in making his employees squirm. Much to THNs surprise we immensely enjoyed the performances of both Colin Farrell and Jennifer Aniston. Farrell is a spectacular douche bag and so much fun to watch as a karate obsessed, coke fiend who treats his fathers business like his personal ATM. It is so refreshing to see Jennifer Aniston in a different role, she really sinks her teeth into the nymphomaniac boss with a potty mouth that makes Roy Chubby Brown sound like little orphan Annie; one of her first lines is an admission that she fingered herself SO hard she broke a nail!
The ongoing gag is the fact that Bateman, Sudeikis and Day are no murderers and so it’s really a story of loveable haplessness – watching three good guys trying to be bad. The only reason this works is because each actor has a unique angle and comic schtick that makes them great on their own and even better when their together…’Three Stooges go murdering’ if you will. Bateman has earned and enjoyed much recent success and is very much on typical form here. Sudeikis is our new comedy hero, his butter-wouldn’t melt look and delivery is spot on and we expect great things. The lesser known Charlie Day is an excellent writer and actor in his own series ‘It’s always sunny in Philadelphia’ and is just now starting to pop up in bigger Hollywood productions – great look, great voice and brilliant at playing the dumby. Whilst the antics and interaction of these three carry the movie cameos from Ioan Gruffudd and Jamie Foxx are brilliant – Foxx in particular shines as ‘Mutha F*cker Jones’ the boys’ murder consultant, if the name alone doesn’t make you laugh then his perfect idiosyncratic glances and posturing will – fantastic!
HORRIBLE BOSSES’ real advantage is that you expect it to be worse than it is. It has a brilliant set up slows down in the middle and then explodes into an energetic farce that tickles you silly. Yes it’s puerile and a little crass – but it never goes for the obvious gross out jokes. The banter between the actors is like Superbad for 30 year olds, quick, witty, absurd yet believable and really does make the movie what it is.
A great cast and a great script carry a rather silly premise that in lesser hands would have been rubbish. A thoroughly enjoyable movie far better than anything we’ve seen recently.It’s only been a day or two since THNs screening and already we’d like to have another watch!
HORRIBLE BOSSES hits cinemas around the country 22/07/11
You can pre-order HORRIBLE BOSSES over at LOVEFiLM, as well as rent dozens of other movies. You can now even watch movies online.
