H || Horrible Bosses || Review

Review by Jason Venter
July 10, 2011
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Most of us who have been in the work force for any length of time can recall bosses we didn’t much care for, because part of the whole package when you’re a boss is that you’re the one people have to respect and listen to. So most workers get that, and they don’t like the bosses but then they go home at the end of the day and the boss isn’t an issue until the next day at work. “Horrible Bosses” is a movie about three close friends who share a common malady: their bosses. The problem, for the most part, is that their bosses aren’t just bad; they’re ruining lives outside of the workplace, too!

Nick Hendricks (Jason Bateman) grew up with the realization that his immigrant grandmother lived her whole life without taking crap from anyone and she died with $2000 to her name. As he put it, that sucks. So he has lived a life of sucking up to his boss, taking crap and figuring that one day he’ll get a promotion from his tough-as-nails, borderline psychotic boss (Kevin Spacey, in a role that he must have cherished). Nick would like to have a different boss, but he can’t even leave because his employer threatens—convincingly—to ruin him if he attempts such a thing.

Kurt Buckman (Jason Sudeikis) has a much better situation. His boss (Donald Sutherland) is a great guy, an easygoing character with integrity. The problem is, he has a son (Colin Farrell, doing his best impersonation of the Tom Cruse character in “Tropic Thunder”) who is just awful. It’s clear that the man is headed nowhere fast… until his father dies. Suddenly Kurt Buckman must live with a new employer who is more concerned with cocaine and strippers than with running a chemical company in a responsible or even particularly efficient manner (despite his stated goal of squeezing every last bit of money out of it that he can).

Finally, there is Dale Arbus (Charlie Day), a man who is engaged to the woman of his dreams. He sees his job as a dental assistant as a necessary and not even particularly terrible evil. He might even enjoy his profession and position, pay aside, if only his knockout boss (Jennifer Anniston) weren’t so anxious to make him her gigolo.

So there are the three protagonists and they’re likable but in really awful positions. When it becomes clear that the job market isn’t going to treat them well if they quit, they start idly discussing how much better their lives would be without their current bosses, and from there—aided by alcohol and other circumstances—the discussion leaves the realm of the hypothetical and becomes a matter of “So how do we make this happen?”

The solution they decide upon is taken right out of a Hitchcock thriller (not the one starring Danny DeVito): they murder each others’ bosses so that none of them have a clear motive. If you have trouble with the movie, it’s either going to be over your distaste for that recycled convention or it’ll be an issue with the absurd amount of profanity (one of the side characters even goes by mother****er). If you can make it past both of those points (and you probably can), then “Horrible Bosses” is one of the most effective comedies to come along in years.

The movie’s success comes down to the chemistry between the comedic leads, which is both credible and amusing, and there’s physical comedy (you see it coming but the actors really sell it), plus there’s the unexpected and fresh dialog (with Sudeikis starting a discussion of the 50 states that will forever sexualize the globe). Finally, there’s the infectious enthusiasm that every actor in the movie brings to each role. This is that rarest of comedies where the laughs come at such a rapid clip that when you walk out of the theater, you’ll swear you just watched three of your favorite comedies at the same time.

You don’t have to have nightmarish employers in your own life to get the jokes in “Horrible Bosses.” What you do need is an appreciation for a tight script and actors who mine every scene for laughs while striking gold nine times out of ten. There are flaws, but good luck spotting them when you’re laughing so hard.

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