REVIEW: Horrible Bosses

Horrible Bosses (2011): Dir. Seth Gordon. Written by: Michael Markowitz, John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein. Story by: Michael Markowitz. Starring Jason Bateman, Charlie Day, Jason Sudeikis, Kevin Spacey, Jennifer Aniston, Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx. Rated R (Sexual harassment in the workplace and all the cussing and violence that comes with a murder plan). Running time: 98 minutes.

3 stars (out of four)

Horrible Bosses takes a simple premise and has fun with it. Three friends set out to murder the superiors who make their lives miserable but – as movie murder plots often do – their plans go awry. The premise is a familiar but reliable one and Horrible Bosses twists its plot in a number of clever and very funny directions. Part of the film’s fun is in watching the scheme unravel and tangle up again in some rather ingenious ways. The rest of its fun comes from its leads – the murderous employees – whose ensemble effort lends the film an earnest charm.

Nick Hendricks (Jason Bateman) has been paying his dues on the corporate ladder for years and he is only one rung away from the cushy Vice President’s office. His boss, Dave Harkin (Kevin Spacey), has been hinting at a promotion but when the time comes for Harkin to announce the new VP, Nick finds that Harkin had been toying with him. The false promise of the promotion, Harkin explains, was motivation for Nick to work harder.

As a dental assistant for the lascivious Dr. Harris (Jennifer Aniston), Dale Arbus (Charlie Day) has a very different problem with his boss. He is happily engaged to his fiancée (Lindsay Sloane) but Dr. Harris is hell-bent on seducing him before the marriage becomes official. Believing as much in fidelity as he does workplace manners, Dale politely turns down an offer for a romp on top of an unconscious patient.

Then there is Kurt Buckman (Jason Sudeikis), an accountant for a chemical plant during the day and a ladies’ man after the whistle blows. Bobby Pellitt (Colin Farrell), the insufferable son of Kurt’s boss (Donald Sutherland), snorts coke in the bathroom and stomps around the office like a bratty child. Naturally, an unfortunate accident befalls Kurt’s boss, leaving Bobby to run the company and completing the trifecta of horrible.

The three friends do not need to kill their bosses but the alternatives are rather grim. They can’t quit in the current job market but swallowing their dignity another day seems impossible. So they set out to fulfill the fantasies of employees everywhere (themselves included) by killing their bosses.

Horrible Bosses has a wonderful self-awareness to it and features an abundance of references to other movies. Even the way the guys approach their scheme is informed by the countless movies they have seen. When they schedule a meeting with a hit man, Kurt answers the door in a deep, gruff voice because, well, isn’t that how people answer the door when they’re expecting a contract killer? Many of the jokes in the film are subtle and I particularly enjoyed a brief shot where we see Nick comparing the backs of two different brands of rat poison. I imagine that if I ever found myself in a similar situation, I too would be a smart consumer about that purchase.

Much of the film’s subtleties come from the performances of Bateman, Day and Sudeikis. Bateman has become something of Hollywood’s most dependable straight man recently and he and Sudeikis play off each other nicely in a pair of low-key roles. Charlie Day is the wild card in the bunch and the character of Dale bears more than a slight resemblance to Day’s hyper and anxious role on TV’s It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. He transitions fine to the big screen, however, and his comic persona proves to be surprisingly flexible. (He is just as convincing playing a loving fiancé as he is an unbalanced bartender on It’s Always Sunny.)

Each of the bosses is well acted as well but the understated performances of Bateman, Day and Sudeikis often upstage their more over-the-top counterparts. A coke addict running an office is as funny on paper as it is onscreen (that is to say, pretty funny) and Colin Farrell doesn’t need to do much to sell those jokes. The three friends, however, have the considerably more difficult task of making normal guys seem funny and here the movie taps into a fundamental comic truth.

Absurd situations like many of the ones in Horrible Bosses have a degree of inherent humor to them but an ordinary and believable response to their absurdity is even funnier and actually strengthens the comedy of the original situation. When Jennifer Aniston molests a patient under the gas, the scene is funny not because of its crudeness but because of Charlie Day’s flustered and sputtering response that maybe this isn’t the most appropriate way to act in the workplace.

Too many cinematic comedies today try and outdo their peers by seeking new lows in the gross and profane, as if a joke is only funny if it is more disgusting than the last joke you heard. Horrible Bosses has an appreciation for the crude and vulgar but at its core understands that the best comedies are situational comedies involving real people who act in surprising (and surprisingly honest) ways and that attitude is a refreshing one.

- Steve Avigliano,  7/11/11