Horrible Bosses

Rating: 5/10 (24 February 2013)

I had seen the poster for this film so many times that I was getting annoyed that I hadn't seen it, because it has such a good list of stars in the cast, I had no idea about the plot apart from clips I had seen from trailers so I was looking forward to watching it, from director Seth Gordon (Four Christmases). Basically Nick Hendricks (Jason Bateman) hates his boss Dave Harken (Kevin Spacey) in his financial firm because he is a sadistic, power-crazed bully who keeps tricking him into thinking he is up for a promotion he wants; Kurt Buckman (Hall Pass's Jason Sudeikis) hates his boss Bobby Pellitt (Colin Farrell) in his family owned chemical company because he is insensitive, addicted to cocaine, and his father Jack Pellitt (Donald Sutherland) was a nice man until he was killed; and Dale Arbus (Charlie Day) hates his boss Dr. Julia Harris, D.D.S. (Jennifer Aniston) at the dentist surgery because he is engaged and she is sexually harassing him, demanding that he sleeps with her, and threatening to his fiancée that they slept together if he doesn't. The three men are good friends, and one night they are simply joking around at the idea of killing their horrible bosses, Dale is the first to say that he actually wants to do it, and Nick and Kurt agree to this as well, they obviously do not want to do it themselves though. They are just three ordinary guys, so they have no idea how to hire the services of a hit-man, and their first attempt to do so from an advertisement on the internet goes wrong when Wetwork Man (Ioan Gruffudd) shows up, and it turns out he is a male prostitute who pisses on people for money, this is the "wet work". They are directed by navigation-system operator Gregory, real and unpronounceable Atmanand (Brian George) to a bar that is supposed to be full of criminals, and there they meet and pay a supposed hit-man who calls himself Dean 'Motherfucker' Jones (Jamie Foxx), after he caught his mother having sex, who advises they should use movies like Strangers on a Train and Throw Momma from the Train as a guide in how to swap murders of their bosses. They are told that the deaths should look like accidents, so one by one Nick, Kurt and Dale break into their bosses' houses to find out more about more about them, such as habits and potential ways to cause a convincing accident, incriminate them or of course kill them, this includes finding samples of cocaine, wiping toothbrushes and razors between their butt cheeks, and finding cell phones. During these break-ins they cause unintentional mistakes, such as breaking and spilling things, leaving behind things that would mean being arrested if identified from DNA evidence, at one point Dale almost unknowingly kills Harken when he has an allergic reaction to peanuts, and Jones admits he is not actually a hit-man. Doing this however does cause some unexpected events, including Harken who shoots Pellitt right at his front door, this is because his cellphone, dropped by Kurt, was found by Harken at his house, and he assumed wrongly that Pellitt was having some kind of affair with his wife, and Dale is sure that he can get Julia off his back by agreeing to have sex with her. With Pellitt murdered Nick, Kurt and Dale know that they can get of Harken by getting his arrested for the crime, so they take a recording device so they can record him confessing to the killing, but he catches on to this plan at his surprise birthday party, and when it looks like they are the next victims the police rescue them, and Gregory in the car recorded Harken's voice threatening them. In the end Harken is sentenced to twenty five years in prison for murder and Nick is promoted to company president, Kurt keeps his job and gets a new nice boss Lou Sherman (Bob Newhart) who may have a dark side, and Dale blackmails Julia to end the harassment by having Jones secretly recording her harassing a supposedly unconscious patient and threatening he will get her fired if she tries anything. Also starring Lindsay Sloane as Stacy and Julie Bowen as Rhonda Harken. Bateman, Sudeikis and Day are great choices as the men who cannot stand their bosses for equally unbearable reasons, Spacey is suitably cruel and vicious, Farrell is alright but not really on much, Aniston is for once really good playing the opposite to anything you would be used to from her being a beautiful nymphomaniac bitch, and with his time on screen Foxx is cool as the dodgy lawbreaker. The story is exactly like one of those classic murder-swap films, with three slightly boozy but career conscious chums, the plot is easy to follow and you can find so much of the material really funny, I personally found it mostly hilarious and I don't know why the critics gave it a low rating, in my opinion a fun black comedy. Worth watching!