Horrible Bosses







Directed by: Seth Gordon

Starring: Jason Bateman, Charlie Day, Jason Sudeikis, Jennifer Aniston, Kevin Spacey, Colin Farrell, and Jamie Foxx

I measure great comedies by how hard I laugh during them.  The funniest movies make me laugh until I cry.  Bridesmaids set the bar for comedies this summer.  I haven't laughed (and cried) that much during a movie in years.  So far, it's been a pretty tough act to follow.  The Hangover: Part II was literally The Hangover with a location change.  It just rehashed old jokes.  Bad Teacher was a June release and never really had any hope.  Let's face it.  The best movies of the summer blockbuster season come out in May and July.  Zookeeper was a movie about talking animals...enough said.  Horrible Bosses was the next hope for a great comedy.  While this flick didn't make me laugh until I cried, I laughed pretty heartily throughout the flick.

Horrible Bosses is a fun film based on the premise that a trio of friends has supervisors that make their individual lives hell on earth.  Nick Hendricks (Jason Bateman) is terrorized on a daily basis by Dave Harken (Kevin Spacey) who seems to have an appetite for treating his employees like slaves.  Nick has been gunning for a promotion to senior vice president of sales at his company.  After putting in some extreme efforts, Nick sits back and watches Harken assume the VP duties (and pay), while he remains in the same old crappy role.  Dale Arbus (Charlie Day) has a little sexual harassment problem on the job.  His boss Dr. Julia Harris (Jennifer Aniston) is a very naughty dentist set on getting some quality time with him.  Finally, Kurt Buckman (Jason Sudeikis) doesn't have it so bad.  He likes his boss Jack Pellit (David Sutherland).  The problem starts when his boss croaks and his son Bobby (Colin Farrell) takes over the family business.  Bobby is a junkie only looking to cash out on his dad's lifetime of work building the company.  Kurt takes issue with this.

While the trio is at a bar having some drinks, they joke around about how they would love to kill their bosses.  The only caveat is that they actually decide to take action.  The rest of the movie is just planning and trying to murder their bosses.  Despite all this craziness about ordinary, hard-working folks killing people, I have to say that I love the premise of this film.  In everyone's life, there is always at least one person that gets on your nerves.  You may not want to kill that person, but you can certainly understand the sentiment.  Empathy of this ridiculous notion is what makes it so funny.  When you understand and accept this, the film is that much more enjoyable.

For me, the standout character of the film is Dean M*****F***** Jones (Jamie Foxx).  Nick, Dale, and Kurt hired him as a murder consultant when they realized that they were not ideally suited to kill their own bosses.   Because of the ensemble cast, Foxx didn't have much screen time, but he was hilarious in every scene in which he appeared.  The name of his character alone is pretty funny.  There is no courteous way to ever address somebody as "m*****f*****" except "Mr. M*****F*****".  Because of nonsense like this, Foxx's scenes were priceless.

Overall, Horrible Bosses is a good film worth checking out in your spare time.  It's not something you should rush to the theater to see though.  As I said previously, I rate comedies based on how hard I laugh.  I laughed a great deal, but I have certainly seen funnier films this year.  Horrible Bosses gets a 0.06% rating.