“I’m sorry. I had no idea…” *bursts out laughing* “…that you called your grandmother ‘gam gam’! I’m sorry…you didn’t get to say good-bye to gam gam!!!”
-Kevin Spacey, as himself
“The would-be assassins’ hopelessly bungling efforts produce a steady supply of laughs, though the jokes are often extremely rude and crude and the meandering plot doesn’t make the most of the film’s set-up. […] Fortunately, the actors rise above the script. Day’s shrieky performance is irritating, admittedly, but Bateman underplays beautifully and Spacey, Farrell and Anniston totally nail their despicable characters.”
-Jason Best, What’s On TV (U.K.)
-Jason Best, What’s On TV (U.K.)
“One by-product of a recession is that it traps people in jobs they don’t like under bosses they can’t stand, so the idea behind the comedy should have been timely and cathartic. But here the script constantly sacrifices wit, heart and plausibility in pursuit of cheap laughs and filthy banter.”
-Chris Tookey, DailyMail.com
“Look at how crazy is the craziness we are doing for you. Isn’t it crazy? the movie shouts, and the more it does, the less you’ll laugh. This thing has a ‘The Hangover’ hangover.”
-Kyle Smith, The New York Post
Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis, and…that guy from “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”…star alongside their opposites in Colin Farrell, Jennifer Aniston, and Kevin Spacey, the title characters of the black comedy “Horrible Bosses.” Specifically, the title cartoon characters.
We, as moviegoers, don’t ask much of our movies—well, besides decent casting and acting, proper direction, consistent characterization and tone, coherent cinematography and editing, and plausible writing and plot-building. As well as gratuitous action pieces, precise and thrilling fight choreography, and attractive, over-feminized love interests placed in threatening situations while gradually losing all but the absolutely essential articles of clothing. (The use of rambling, pseudo-philosophical monologues is also a plus as far as film critics go. On a related note, I’m seriously looking forward to the new Dark Knight movie.)
The one thing viewers (well, at the least the viewer writing this) yearn for, though, is that a movie doesn’t stray too far from its basic premise, the strength of many an “indie” film given to us by the Judd Apatow school of filmmaking. “Juno” gives an interesting exploration of teen pregnancy, “(500) Days of Summer” is a questioning look at romance, and “Scott Pilgrim,” as completely ridiculous as it is, shows us just how annoying a 22-year-old slacker can really be, and how much you want to punch him in the face.
We, as moviegoers, don’t ask much of our movies—well, besides decent casting and acting, proper direction, consistent characterization and tone, coherent cinematography and editing, and plausible writing and plot-building. As well as gratuitous action pieces, precise and thrilling fight choreography, and attractive, over-feminized love interests placed in threatening situations while gradually losing all but the absolutely essential articles of clothing. (The use of rambling, pseudo-philosophical monologues is also a plus as far as film critics go. On a related note, I’m seriously looking forward to the new Dark Knight movie.)
The one thing viewers (well, at the least the viewer writing this) yearn for, though, is that a movie doesn’t stray too far from its basic premise, the strength of many an “indie” film given to us by the Judd Apatow school of filmmaking. “Juno” gives an interesting exploration of teen pregnancy, “(500) Days of Summer” is a questioning look at romance, and “Scott Pilgrim,” as completely ridiculous as it is, shows us just how annoying a 22-year-old slacker can really be, and how much you want to punch him in the face.
By contrast, while “Horrible Bosses” is an interesting look at what can happen when three beleaguered employees are pushed too far by their abusive, apathetic, or just plain amoral bosses, it’s not really the interesting look at such a situation. It’s a black comedy, it’s just not the black comedy I was hoping it would be. Even with Charlie and his two Jasons at the helm, these otherwise excellent leading men just can’t salvage the script, which is basically “American Pie” meets “Nine to Five,” or if not the latter, then at least some mid-season story from “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” where the gang tries to off Frank or one of the other regular characters.
Sometimes I wonder if I’m simply tone-deaf when it comes to movie trailers. When it comes to something like the upcoming “Cowboys and Aliens,” I can tell right away that it’s not going to be a typical cowboy movie, nor is it going to be a typical sci-fi movie (though with the onslaught of Hollywood aliens ever since Independence Day roared through theaters, one can never be sure).
But with something like…that one movie I must never speak of again…it was impossible for me to tell that there would be…ugh…romance to go along with the explosive spy action. With this film, it should’ve been far easier to bridge the gap between my own expectations and what this movie would be: the whole “gam gam” exchange, the scene where Charlie is trying to give Spacey the Heimlich maneuver, the prison interrogation where Bateman confesses to not being a good street racer—all of these were in the trailer, and should have been dead giveaways that this movie was going to be a bit too light on the “black” in “black comedy.”
The casting alone should have been another dead giveaway; Bateman and Charlie have built up cult followings over the years through their respective comedies of errors, “Arrested Development” and the above-mentioned “It’s Always Sunny.” What the studio has given us is less a comedy involving murder and more simply a comedy of errors. Charlie’s character is a reflection of this, in that he’s essentially the same character he plays in “It’s Always Sunny,” which is to say, a stammering, hopeless, somewhat well-meaning idiot. And Bateman is essentially the same character he played in “Arrested Development,” which is to say, a condescending, wisecracking “generic” guy, and possibly the only sane character in the entire film. And Sudeikis…I don’t even know. He was in SNL, wasn’t he?
The same, thankfully, can’t be said of our antagonists, with some exception; as a president of sales who is despicable in every sense of the word, Spacey is at least channeling the now-overquoted nemesis of Superman in his latest role. Meanwhile, Aniston, having left behind that one show all of my female friends keep referencing (besides Buffy) long ago, embraces her role as Nurse Nymphomaniac to an increasingly stammering Charlie, threatening to ruin his engagement to his would-be fiancé unless he has sex with her. Rounding out the trio of bad bosses is one bald-cap-boasting Colin Farrell, who plays a coke fiend who abuses his new power as the company owner for…basically drugs, sex, and rock and roll (in other words, the Vince Neil approach).
Completing the main cast is Jamie Foxx, who appears in a couple of scenes as a “murder consultant,” an ex-con who gives the protagonists advice on how to kill their bosses and how not to discriminate against individuals such as himself based on race. Malcolm X he is not, though; he instead functions as a reminder of what happens when you walk into the first bar you find and try to find a hit man on the cheap.
The plot is the typical Hollywood fare, and the characters are written as such, dumbed down for the lowest common denominator. Even before the halfway point of the movie, there are telltale signs of how much the story eventually spirals out of any semblance of control, tone, writing, or meaning: for instance, Aniston’s character trying to mount Charlie in the middle of the exam room (the dentist’s office), Farrell’s character closing his office blinds and having an orgy in the middle of work, Sudeikis’s character shoving his genitalia into a pie. (Okay, that last one might be from a different movie, but he might as well have…) All of this typical Hollywood fare spirals into typical Hollywood hijinks, and then abruptly transitions into a typical Hollywood ending just when it seems like the story’s starting to resonate with its potential premise.
The end result is a movie that, while neither excellent nor horrible, is just ridiculously, absolutely, gratuitously typical. An otherwise okay beginning transitions into an aimless hour or so, and then shifts abruptly into a near-incoherent and implausible ending; the sum of these parts is a lukewarm movie. If nothing else, the actors, creators, and producers are clearly aiming for a darker version of “Hangover,” when all they’ve really given us is Hangover-lite.
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