Horrible Bosses | Review
Not only is this weekend’s new R-rated comedy ‘Horrible Bosses’ funny, but it’s foul-mouthed and dirty, and it’s proud of it! The new film benefits from the collaboration between its clever script and stellar cast consisting of Jason Bateman (‘Hancock’), Jason Sudeikis (‘Saturday Night Live’), Charlie Day (‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’), Jennifer Aniston (‘Friends’), Colin Farrell (‘Miami Vice’), and last but not least the great Kevin Spacey (‘American Beauty’).
Bateman, Sudeikis, and Day portray the three leads in ‘Horrible Bosses’, with each having bosses who make their lives miserable. Jason Bateman’s character Nick Hendricks has a horrible boss in Dave Harken (Kevin Spacey), who’s pretty much a big a-hole. Jason Sudeikis portrays Kurt Buckman, who actually loves his job until his boss Jack Pellitt (Donald Sutherland) dies, leaving the company in the hands of his cocaine-addicted son, Bobby (Colin Farrell). Charlie Day is Dale Arbus, a dental assistant to the sexually-inappropriate Julia Harris (Jennifer Aniston).
The trio despise their bosses so much that one night at the bar, Kurt jokingly suggests they kill their bosses. Initially the they toss the idea away, but as the idea of living without their bosses grows more fond, the trio look into how to pull off the murders. Jamie Foxx (‘The Soloist’) portrays the trio’s “murder consultant,” who’s name I will not say because it’ll ruin a hilarious joke within the film, who helps them plan and successfully murder their individual bosses.
The set-up for ‘Horrible Bosses’ is pretty dark in nature, but the jokes and antics that occur in the film keep the film from being too serious and more comedic. Of course things don’t go as smoothly as the trio planned for it to, but the events that occur between the planning stages of the murder to everything else is where all of the film’s hilarity ensues. The trio (hilariously) encounter problems at Bobby Pillett and Dave Harken’s houses, but most of the funny moments occur when the three leads are just in their cars talking to one another. The chemistry between Bateman, Sudeikis, and Day is there, which is why moments when the three are together, like the car scenes, is funny.
The cast of ‘Horrible Bosses’ is certainly great, and each of the individual roles is perfectly casted. Jason Bateman is the perfect person to portray the straight-laced and mostly normal character of the bunch. Jason Sudeikis is just right as the sex-crazed douchebag type. The scene-stealing Charlie Day essentially portrays a less-dumb, but just-as-lovable, character he plays in the popular television series ‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’. Colin Farrell is almost unrecognizable with his comb-over, but he’s still hilarious as Bobby Pillett. Jennifer Aniston gets sexy-fied and super foul-mouthed for the role of Julia Harris, which pays off in laughs for the film. Kevin Spacey’s role as a boss is drastically more important to the film than the other two, and his performance is solid.
‘Horrible Bosses’ is written by Michael Markowitz, John Francis Daley (‘Freaks and Geeks’) and Jonathan Goldstein, and is directed by Seth Gordon (‘The King of Kong’). Like the original ‘Hangover’ back in 2009, ‘Horrible Bosses’ has a simple and absurd plot that successfully relies on the chemistry between its leads, as well as its clever and well-written script. Though I will say that the first twenty-or-so minutes of ‘Horrible Bosses’ is cringingly unfunny, as soon as the three leads give into the idea of murdering their bosses, the film kicks into hilarious high-gear. It’s second only to ‘Bridesmaids‘ as the best comedy of the summer, but hey that’s not a bad thing to be.