Director: Seth Gordon
Cast: Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis, Charlie Day, Kevin Spacey, Jennifer Aniston, Colin Farrell, Jamie Foxx
Plot: Three friends conspire to murder their awful bosses with the help of a murder consultant (Foxx) when they realise they are standing in the way of their happiness. Nick (Bateman) is shunted a promotion by Harken (Spacey), Kurt's (Sudeikis) company is being driven into the ground by all round jerk Bobby (Farrell) while Dental assistant Dale's boss Julia (Aniston) wants to sexually harass him.
One thing has to be accepted about 'Horrible Bosses' before you make the trip to the cinema - it is completely ridiculous. The Hitchcock like premise is insane, the characters are idiots and the bosses are overly evil......yet it works. Despite the outlandish nature of the plot the writers do make it somewhat believable that these average Joe workers would decide to murder their bosses. Once you look past the implausibility of their plan and accept the character's reasoning without looking at it too logically, 'Horrible Bosses' is an enjoyable comedy.
The three friends Nick, Dale and Kurt are complete morons and they had to be in order for this film to be successful. They had to truly believe that they could murder their bosses, get away with it and have their lives improve as a result otherwise we would doubt what they are doing. The intelligence of the trio is comparable to a modern day Three Stooges, they are that stupid. Nick (Bateman) is the slightly smarter one of group who, quite rightly, doubts the likely success rate of their plan, while the other two Kurt (Sudeikis) and Dale (Day) completely throw themselves into the ill judged scheme, not having a clue what they are supposed to be doing. As is common now, a group of friends have to have a friendship similar to that of the main three in 'The Hangover' and the filmmakers have attempted to recreate that here as well, with the chemistry between our "heroes" certainly matching if not bettering it.
As for the horrible bosses we have Kevin Spacey's psychopathic office manager, Jennifer Aniston's sex crazed dentist and coke head arsehole Colin Farrell. Each boss is hilarious with the actors doing a great of making these despicable people evil in such an over the top way - that is when they actually show up on screen. The most disappointing thing about 'Horrible Bosses' is that we don't get to a lot of the horrible bosses, especially Colin Farrell who wanted to fire the fat people because "they made him sad to look at". Whats more disappointing is that Farrell seemed to be the funniest of the three and much more time is spent with Spacey who is always great but is essentially playing himself. Aniston on the other hand couldn't be any further from what we expect from her, she is half naked in pretty much every scene she is in, uses language that you would never hear on 'Friends', but as the characters joke Dale's problem doesn't seem to be that bad. Unfortunately her character is all but forgotten half way through with again more time dedicated to Spacey.
Speaking of Dale's "problem" Charlie Day does an incredible job of selling to us a guy who hates the situation he is in and does all he can to avoid the sexual advances of Dr.Julia, as despite how good Aniston may look she is INSANE. Day, who is all but unknown to UK audiences, comes out as the star of the film and is by far the funniest character on screen putting in a great performance as the innocently stupid Dale.Sudeikis and Bateman have their moments to shine and are hysterical in their own right, but it is clear that most of the comedy is focused on Dale. Two quick cameos from Ioann Gruffudd as a Wetwork specialist and Jamie Foxx as murder consultant Motherf*cker Jones are two other standouts, delivering in their short but funny scenes.
A main worry with 'Horrible Bosses' was that it would all wrap up to nicely and to a certain extent it does, but the writers throw in more than a few surprises to keep you guessing right till the very end, which many won't see coming. The decision to have them kill each others targets a la Alfred Hitchcock's 'Strangers On A Train' was a smart move because this just led to more situations the three don't have the slightest clue what they are doing, with one of them accidentally saving his intended target's life.
'Horrible Bosses' is a funny film.... a very funny film, that was surprising in how it delivered its premise and wasn't a by the numbers comedy. Although it was extremely disappointing that we don't see more of the bosses, with Farrell barely being in the movie, there are more than enough laughs from the main trio to keep audiences entertained. In a year starved of good original comedies 'Horrible Bosses' is perfect counter to the 'Harry Potters' and 'Transformers' of this world.
Rating:
No comments:
Post a Comment