Horrible Bosses

Director: Seth Gordon
Writers: Michael Markowitz, Jonathan Goldstein, John Francis Daley
Starring: Jason Bateman, Charlie Day, Jason Sudeikis
Release Date: July 8, 2011
Length: 1 hour 38 minutes

A trio of brilliantly talented comics, Jason Sudeikis, Charlie Day and Jason Bateman star in a comedy about a group of friends who after having enough at their respective stressful jobs, attempt to kill all three of their respective awful bosses together and end their misery. Kurt’s sweet elderly boss Jack Pellit, played by Donald Sutherland, dies unexpectedly and leaves his childish coke addict son, Bobby (Colin Farrell) in charge, who on the first day advises Kurt to fire all the fat people in the office. Nick (Bateman)’s psychotic boss, Dave Harken is the kind that calls him out for being two minutes late to their day of work that starts at 6:00am. After months of Nick overworking himself for a promotion, Harken announces instead of promoting someone else to the position of Vice-President, he will be performing the jobs of VP and President of the company from now on, merging the positions. Dale’s sexually harassing boss, Dr. Julia Harris (Jennifer Anniston) constantly touches him and walks around naked, even though she knows he’s engaged. When it reaches an all time high for all of them, the three decide they will kill each other’s bosses to make each other happy. However, it might be harder than they expected to perfectly murder all three of them without any evidence, being first-timers and all. Anyone can put three hilarious actors in a movie with a ridiculous premise and call it a comedy, but it almost never works. The reason being, those hilarious people can’t exactly do what they’re good at, when they are forced to stick to a script, something most of them aren’t used to. There’s no point in putting them in a movie, if they can’t really perform their job, doing improv. As witty or clever as a script can be, nothing is refreshing as doses of natural improvisation from trained comedians. As absurd as the plot is for Horrible Bosses, the cast makes it a real gem of a comedy. Comedy star Jason Bateman leads the pack of murderers, once again playing the sanest character in a comedy, for the audience to relate to. SNL’s Jason Sudeikis, who’s becoming a rising film star in this year’s Hall Pass and A Good Old Fashioned Orgy, plays the constant horny flirt and newcomer Charlie Day (who starred in Going The Distance with Sudeikis), steals almost every scene as the lovably innocent and terrified member of the group. Together, their humor bounces beautifully off each other and makes for a film that literally has you laughing in every scene. The creative improv and conversation brings laugh after laugh from the audience, making you choke on your breath. Sudeikis, Bateman and Day have differently successful humors that contrast perfectly and make for an amazingly lovable tribromance. They not only work well with each other, but with each of the actors that plays their insane bosses as well. Jennifer Anniston gives possibly her funniest and by far, her most adventurous performance yet as an unstoppable maneater who will oddly not give up on her quest for Dale. Although going without improv, Anniston is incredibly entertaining as the manically sexy dentist, Julia and her scenes with Day were simply golden. Kevin Spacey shows off his impressive comedic skills as another psychotic boss, Dave Harken who repeatedly bowls us and Nick over with his outrageous requests. Bateman and Spacey share remarkable scenes of ridiculousness together that have a more formal distaste between boss and employee. The usually gorgeous and brooding Irish actor Colin Farrell shows his versatility and gives one of his few hysterical performances as the disgusting addict boss, Bobby Pellit of Kurt. Sudeikis and Farrell also share some interesting dialogue since Pellit is treating his position with the utmost power. Jamie Foxx gives one of the most memorable performances in this film with his few scenes as a mysterious thug fresh out of jail, Motherf***er Jones, who attempts to help the boys in their endeavour. Although I said earlier that the cast made the film what it was, so did director Seth Gordon. It takes a very comfortable, very trustworthy director to let his cast go all out, but that’s what Gordon did. His known encouragement for improv in the film, gave him the opportunity to capture some pretty precious comedy moments that rarely appear in movies of the genre. His directorial skills show us what all nonsensical comedies could turn into, with someone like him in the director’s chair. With Gordon and the phenomenal cast, this will, without a doubt, win everyone over within the first five minutes. Horrible Bosses is by far, this summer’s best comedy and one of the most original comedies to come out in a long time.