Filthy Fun.

Rating: Null/10 (22 July 2011)

Psycho. Maneater. Tool. They're horrible bosses, and so they must die. Obviously, right? Okay, maybe not—but we've all been there. He's the guy who makes your fresh coffee seems years older than your mother; the woman who can turn milk sour by staring at it; it's that person you hate to hate; your boss. Well, most of the time anyway. Not so much for Kurt Buckman (Jason Sudeikis) who actually has a boss he loves—until he has a heart attack and is replaced by seminal tool, Bobby Pellit (Colin Farrell), who confesses he only wants to milk his dad's company for the money to presumably feed his cocaine habit and weakness for hookers. The same can't be said for Buckman's two closest friends (played by the ever-straight Jason Bateman and the movie's clown Dale Arbus), who, for better or worse, have had to suffer under their terrible bosses for a little while longer. Bateman's character is perhaps the only one with feasible reason for wanting to murder his boss (having worked for 7 or so years with no advancement); with Arbus merely having to cope with sexual advances from his boss a tantalizing Jennifer Anniston. Aw, poor Arbus.
Sure, it's a movie with a plot as thick as rice pudding, but I guess that's not the point. The point here is to make you laugh, not purely from the characters themselves, but from the absurd situations that they are placed in. For this reason, and many others, Horrible Bosses feels familiar, in both a positive and negative manner. Being bred out of the school of Apatow (though he has nothing to do with this project) and The Hangover, Seth Gordon's movie here is fine when put side to side with movie's produced within this niche sub-genre that's blossomed over the past few years, but it's never something that is going to maintain a lasting impression simply because it never strives to have its own voice. It's racy, sure. It's laugh-out-loud funny at times, yes. It's got normal guys acting ridiculous in over-the-top situations that get progressively worse, absolutely. But I saw the same thing a few weeks back—only that one had a smoking monkey, and you know who the prize is going to in that competition.
Yet in going over why and how Horrible Bosses isn't as necessary to see as it perhaps should be, it goes without saying that you really can't go wrong if you're only in to laugh and perhaps be shocked a few times. Hey, it's not called Horrible Bosses without reason (though one could easily imagine a more fitting title, not penned by someone from the cast of Little House on the Prairie—seriously, it's a terrible title for such a movie.) Part of what makes the movie so fun, is in watching the fun that the movie's less obvious characters get to have in bringing to life the outrageously broad and ridiculous bosses that make these guy's lives a living hell. Aside from the strangely alluring (a first for me, at least) Anniston, there's the unrecognisable Colin Farrell in a fat suit and comb-over wig, and a scenery chewing Kevin Spacey (Buddy Ackerman, anyone?) who brings so much more to an otherwise cookie cutter script. Indeed, if not for the performances of any of the main cast, Horrible Bosses would be more than horrible, but thankfully these guys (and gals) keep it interesting and amusing start to finish. It's not going to blow you away, but it certainly won't have you groaning either. With enough sass, laughs and decent characterisation, Horrible Bosses is a fun movie to watch, but don't count on it lasting.