Firstly, let me apologise for the fact that K*vin Sp*cey is in this movie. Thankfully, his presence isn’t actually as constant as the promotional material suggests, so things could be much, much worse.
Horrible Bosses – as the title suggests – is about just that; three friends (played by Jason Sudeikis, Jason Bateman and Charlie Day) are all quite successful in what they do, but they have one issue in that they all detest their bosses. Sp*cey, Jennifer Aniston and Colin Farrell play the titular leaders, proving that this really is a star-studded blockbuster of a comedy. When things get too much for the trio however, they seek advice from an ex-convict played by Jamie Foxx (another star!), which goes worse than they expected. Namely, as a result of this ‘advice’, they decide to get rid of their bosses for good… by killing them.
Yep, this is basically your average modern comedy starring three dude buddies doing ridiculous, ill-advised shit… so why didn’t I hate it?! It’s a question that’s been bothering me for days now, so let’s see if I can muster up an explanation.
As utterly stupid as it is, Horrible Bosses is actually storyboarded really well, with one misfortunate act having an unforeseen impact on something else further along the line and not always in the way you’d expect. Not only that, but within the script, there’s also a mix of truly organic dialogue and extremely unrealistic exchanges, and somehow the two styles blend together really well, which is often the case in successful comedy films.
In regards to actual comedy however, it’s not consistently laugh out loud, rolling on the floor funny. Some of the jokes really do not land at all, to put it politely. However, both of the Jasons stand out positively, particularly in their obviously improvised scenes, and this is the most fun I’ve seen Jennifer Aniston have since Friends. She’s clearly the star of the movie even though she was clearly only case here to play the token female character.
Thankfully, this movie is pretty short – the plot really fizzled out by the end. Weirdly though, it kind of felt as though certain things weren’t tied up neatly enough, like the writers/producers just couldn’t be bothered to flesh out the ending and instead just said “blah blah blah THE END”. So that was weird, but again, if it was any longer the audience would undoubtedly lose any sort of interest they first had.
Overall, this isn’t the worst time I’ve had watching a movie and I did laugh occasionally. Will I ever think about it again? It’s highly unlikely. To be honest, I probably won’t even watch the sequel. Despite that, Horrible Bosses is an example of averagely decent filmmaking with an easy-watching feel about it.
Horrible Bosses is available to stream on Sky Cinema and Now TV in the UK.
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