Film Review: “Horrible Bosses”

OUT OF 4

In this summer of raunch, director Seth Gordon(“Four Christmases”)leads us into a dark, vulgar and absurdly amusing farce with this aptly titled feature,   written by Michael Markowitz and script doctored by John Frances Daley, and Jonathan Goldstein(TV writers).  The log line for this one might read: “three hard-working professionals turn to murder as the only solution to their hopeless job situations”. The guys, living in this recessionary  economy where horrible bosses rule with impunity, are played by Jason Sudekis(“Hall Pass”, SNL) Jason Bateman (“Juno”) and Charlie Day (“It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”). Bateman is Nick, a financial planner whose monstrous boss is Harken played by Kevin Spacey at his most maniacal. Sudekis is Kurt, a loyal, but horny, accountant at a chemical company who actually likes his boss (Donald Sutherland in a cameo)-but upon the man’s traumatic cardiac arrest, inherits his debaucherous sex and coke addicted son, Bobby (Colin Farrell) as his new supervisor. Bobby is infused with horrendous greed and decides to milk the company for every dollar he can extract regardless of moral consequences. Day’s character, Dale, is a slacker of sorts who settles into a dental hygienist position with a sexually abusive dentist named Dr. Julia Harris portrayed as a stretch by Jennifer Aniston. Over beers one night, Nick, Kurt, and Dale decide that the only solution to their desperate situations is to hire a hit man. Jamie Foxx, tattooed to look like Michael Tyson’s best friend, offers dubious advice on how to execute the plan.  Watching professional actors having fun with these characters is a joy. By “Hangover” standards for comedy this one has box office clout.  If, however, you apply classic Billy Wilder comedic principles of plot, motivation and character as they apply to commonly perceived human behaviour you’re going to find this one doesn’t quite cut it and comes up short.

FFT Webmaster

The FFT Webmaster use displays whenever an article has multiple authors. It also pops up on articles from old versions of Film Festival Today. The original author byline might be missing! In that case, if you are the author of such an article and see this bio instead of your own, please send us an email. Some of our contributors that might be missing bylines are: Brad Balfour, Laura Blum, and Sandy Mandelberger, among others.