HORRIBLE BOSSES

“HORRIBLE BOSSES” (Jason Bateman, Kevin Spacey, Jason Sudeikis, Colin Farrell, Charlie Day & Jennifer Aniston)

I listed the actors in pairs of employee/boss employee/boss employee/ boss. Nick (Bateman) works for David Harker (Spacey) in an office where Harker dangles a vice presidential position in Nick’s face to force him to kowtow to Harker’s constant harassment.
Nick shows up for work two minutes late & Harker tells him he’s going to fire the security guard forcing Nick to confess that he wasn’t one minute late, but two.
Kurt (Sudeikis) works for kindly Donald Sutherland, who promptly dies, leaving his cocaine addicted son, Bobby (Farrell) in charge of the company. Bobby has always resented Kurt‘s relationship with his father and goes out of his way to make Kurt’s work life a living hell. These two indeed have horrible bosses and the thought that they would consider hiring a hit man to rub them out to make their lives less stressful isn’t beyond the realms of reality. However... the third coupling; short, scruffy looking, squeaky-voiced Dale (Day) works as the dental assistant to D.D.S. Julia (Aniston)
HIS complaint is that his boss sexually harasses him. I don’t care if Dale just got engaged – I don’t care if Dale has scruples – I don’t care if Dale has erectile dysfunction; If someone that looks like Jennifer Aniston wants to have sex with you – it is not harassment, it’s the greatest (bleep)ing job in the whole (bleep)ing world!
Unlike ‘Bad Teacher’, ‘Horrible Bosses’ delivers as an extremely amusing dark comedy. Hearing Jennifer say very raunchy R-Rated lines was a hoot in itself. She steps away from her ‘cutie pie’ roles of the past and the fact that she’s talking filthy makes this her most impressive acting performance to date.
Kevin Spacey also makes a comeback of sorts (The promise he showed in ‘Men Who Stare At Goats’ comes to fruition here) Harker is an unbelievable a-hole, but Spacey plays him with such delight that he’s just fun to watch.
In fact, everyone gels in this film, except Day. I became annoyed with his voice very early on & when he started shunning his gorgeous boss’s advances, I found him to be annoying and unbelievably stupid. What would have worked is if they made him gay.
But he’s engaged to a woman. A rather plain looking mousy woman - and he’s appalled by the fact that Jennifer Aniston wants to have sex with him?
As you can tell, that’s the one faucet of ‘Horrible Bosses’ that keeps it from being perfect, but it is a pretty leaky faucet.
Jamie Foxx enters the picture as the hit man the three men think they’re hiring to rub out their deplorable bosses. Since this is a PG-13 rated blog, I can only refer to Foxx’s character as ‘M-F’ Jones.
Then there’s a cameo by Bob Newhart that works like a charm as well.
It’s a dark concept, but that doesn’t stop it from being silly as well. It mixes the two perfectly – When they discover Harker is allergic to peanuts they devise a plan to empty a jar of peanuts into his bottle of shampoo. Like no one will suspect foul play when the detectives discover a bath tub full of Planter’s peanuts.
Or when Nick flees the scene of a mishap they didn’t expect and gets caught speeding, Nick tells the officer he was drag racing. Incredulously the cop asks, “In a Prius?” Nick replies, “I never win.”
I just wish someone would have stepped forward with the voice of reason and said, “Dale HAS to be gay!” The scene were Julia calls Dale into her office and she’s wearing nothing but her unbuttoned white lab coat and a pair of panties and Dale doesn’t jump on her right then & there is just too unimaginable for words. “Paul” was more believable and that movie was about an alien from outer space with a raunchy sense of humor!
& the reason I bring “Paul” up is because I’m debating which movie was funnier; “Horrible Bosses” or “Paul”. They’re both top notched comedies that cracked me up.