Horrible Bosses

It's been a month since I've seen a movie at the theatre, but after finishing my exams and given that there's nothing out this week had me interested (I live in Australia and the movie Drive is out on October 22nd) so I went to see this movie for the sakes of laughing throughout its core... and I did.

Jason Bateman, Jason Sudekis and Charlie Day are Nick, Kurt and Dale, three best friends who work for bosses that treats them like shit. Nick has Harken (Kevin Spacey), the psychotic head of an investment company who manipulateshim, Dale has Jennifer Aniston his nymphomaniac dentist while Kurt was about to enjoy his job until the coked-up son of his boss Bobby Pellit (a combed-over Colin Farrell) takes over. So the three guys decide that their only choice to justify how they're put up with it is to murder their respective bosses. They consulted with an expert played by Jamie Foxx and as you would expect, their plans becomes puzzling.

From the opening 20 minutes, we get an interestingly cynical insight of our three leads' workplace environment. The major contribution from these environments are the bosses who as the title states are horrible with their employees. And the funniest part about this and the movie as a whole are the bosses who are so exagerrated to the point where you want to agree with the three guys and wishing they were literally dead. But after this the ecstastic feeling you would get from this film turned stale.

This movie would've turned out to be a caper black comedy and it is in some scenes. Instead it's made from R-rated comedy 101. I admit that I laughed as much as I thought I wouldn't but it's usually the jokes that I find that are not that funny or inconsistent to the purpose of the film. That's where most of it came from in the second act where the guys are off to murder where it shows how incredibly idiotic they are. There's one scene where Kurt sticks up Bobby' toothbrush and razor up his ass and I don't really know whether it justified how his boss is literally an asswiper or just being stupid. Another is when Dale and Nick enter across Harken's mansion and they come across cats which is only funny the first time, when two more comes up leaving the movie to be so seriously tedious.

But the worst part that turns me off about it is that some of them shows that this movie... really hates women. You can have Aniston as a hypersexual boss but when you notice that almost every woman is depicted as a cheating she-devil in particular Spacey's wife played by Julie Bowen and that the only person who seems to think so is Kurt. So there are some major issues I had with the screenplay and of Seth Gordon's direction. However it would then pick itself up in the third act that had time to be very unpredictable.

While Jason Bateman, Jason Sudekis and Charlie Day are all having fun here, they all play the same characters we used to know from TV. As much as I like Jason Bateman, I think he deserved much more range in his comedic timing. Sudeskis still plays the same character he was in Hall Pass while Day is the breakout even if he really sounds irritating.

Problems aside, I like the bosses better and as usual Kevin Spacey is dangerous. Seeing the relationship between him and Bateman reminds me of The Devil Wears Prada with Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway as it's veteran vs first timer tension coming off. It's nice to see Jennifer Aniston playing against type as the maneating dentist and Colin Farrell as the cokehead boss who's much worse of an employer than you would expect.

I didn't think it was funny as everybody thought it was. It has some huge laughs but I wished Horrible Bosses would have worked more as a black comedy moving along with its premise than just the usual profane, woman-hating R rated comedy it is. But I had a good laugh and that's about needed in this film.

B- (6.3)