Nick (Jason Bateman), Dale (Charlie Day) and Kurt (Jason Sudeikis) are struggling. Their bosses (Kevin Spacey, Jennifer Aniston and Colin Farrell) are horrible. Properly horrible. They can’t leave their jobs for various reasons relating to blackmail, undeserved criminal records and concerns about the employment market but cannot stand their bosses. They decide to kill their bosses, enlisting the help of seeming criminal consultant Muthaf***a Jones (Jamie Foxx). It all then starts to go horribly wrong.
*****
Horrible Bosses is a lot of fun. It didn’t get much love on its theatrical release and although it is hardly a classic for the ages, it does what it does well. Key to its relative success is the likeability of and our sympathy for the put-upon leads. Although Sudeikis tests our empathy towards Kurt by making him a bafflingly successful man with all manner of attractive women, for the most part the three of them are funny, endearing and believably out of their depth. Bateman in particular (and utterly unsurprisingly) demonstrates the deftest touch in terms of comic timing, showing once again his seemingly limitless capacity to improve any film in which he appears.
As is fleshed out in the features, Aniston, Spacey and Farrell have a load of fun on antagonist duties. Spacey is of course very much channeling his earlier work in Swimming with Sharks and is far more within his comfort zone than the others, but to his credit he doesn’t phone his work in, giving a creditably convincing performance. The script and direction manage to keep things moving along nicely, with the risk of repetition being deftly avoided, though as with so many films these days, it is a little too long in the extended cut offered here.
Most of the shenanigans generate the requisite laughs, although a brief scene where the guys bump into an old friend who lost his job at Lehman Brothers and is now offering sexual favours for money is a little more gross than is really necessary. As mentioned above, not a game-changer, but not a bad way to spend an evening in. You can catch it on DVD and Bluray to rent from 21st November and to buy from mid-December. Or, you might like to try your hand at winning a copy here.
[Rating:3/5]
Extras: Not bad. The main cast share their experiences of horrible bosses, talk about how to survive a horrible boss and give us a bit of insight into how they each approached their characters. We see some on set messing about, some deleted scenes and there’s a featurette on the making of the soundtrack, of all things. Neither too long, nor too brief. Well done.
[Rating:3/5]
[yframe url=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mh9cG5dzs-U’]
