Review of Horrible Bosses (2011) by Joanna B — 01 Mar 2016

At some time or another everyone has been employed in an oppressive workplace; generally under a manager we would secretly love see either miraculously disappear of the face of the earth or destroyed by a rouge anvil dropped from a great height.

Maybe not to the certifiable, manipulative and vengeful extent of those that populate Horrible Bosses, but the easily relatable notion of killing your supervisor in aid of making the world a better place is riotously appealing. Can't work with em'; may as well kill em'.

Best Friends since high school, working schlubs Nick (Jason Bateman), Dale (Charlie Day) and Kurt (Jason Sudeikis) have all reached the same career advancement dead-ends. Blocking their progression are three bosses sent from hell. Utterly intolerable, they are the evilest souls ever to obtain executive parking spots.

Punching the unkind daily-grind under promise of becoming senior VP, office drone Nick arrives at work before dawn and leaves long after dusk, but must endure the incessant abuse and bizarre mind games from his sadistic and psychotic CEO Dave Harken (Kevin Spacey).

Dental hygienist Dale spends his day's turning-the-cheek to a diatribe of raunchy expletives and fending off unwanted sexually aggressive advances of novocain-wielding predator and nymphomaniac Dr. Julia Harris (Jennifer Aniston).

Whilst accountant Kurt seemingly loves his job and boss Jack Pellit (Donald Sutherland), owner of a small environmentally friendly waste-disposal company. Until a sudden heart attack leaves the factory in the hands of his vile, coke-snorting, hooker-happy debauched son with a dreadful comb-over and a broken moral compass, Bobby (Colin Farrell).

After an inebriated evening venting about the OTT blackmail, terror and humiliation they must endure at the hands of their respective demon's; the trio decide to take action and rationalise a plan to dispose of their unpleasant supervisors, permanently.

Hardly stone-cold killer types, they embark on a wild journey to hire a crazy hitman from the seediest bar in the worst-part-of-town, MF Jones (Jamie Foxx). However when aid of self-confessed 'murder consultant' is less than helpful they must adjust there scheme. If they kill each others bosses and criss-cross motives whilst making it look like an accident, it's perfectly logical there would be no repercussions, right?

Briskly written with an overt peppering of vulgarity, this black comedy relies on sexual and mental panic delivered in the midst of predictably moronic SNL skit style shenanigans. Falling through ineptitude and landing in the safety net just before reaching the truly daringly dark territory. This movie never quite seems to peak managing to always fall just short, as a mildly amusing.

Director Seth Gordon has presented not only three well-defined types (which actually match similar movie The Hangover almost exactly) but he has also found the perfect actor personifications. Bateman is measured as the voice of reason, Sudeikis is the group's Hugh Hefner stud and Day is the third wheel in desperate need of greasing.

Intermittently weaved through the manic juvenile chaos of our hopeless would-be assassins is their wonderfully characterised nemeses'. Spacey raises despicable to an artform as the unrelenting paranoid tyrant, Farrell is unrecognisable in the funniest skin-crawling seedy cameo since Tom Cruise's Tropic Thunder and Aniston is genuinely shocking and dirty as an unashamedly amorous and sexually deprived succubus in scrubs.

The Verdict: Dealing with workplace angst never seemed so easy, however if your thinking about taking up the reins as a would-be henchmen and spiking the water cooler, perhaps it would be best to wait for the ever inevitable sequel.

Published: The Queanbeyan Age.

Date of Publication: 02/09/2011.