When you’re talking about mainstream comedies, there is not much room for improvement and experiments. The studios need their money back and this usually results in light and PG-13 movies that you just watch and forget. Doing so will make you have a relatively fun time and the studio got their money back, so it’s a win-win situation. No one wonders what happens to the movie. Well, Horrible Bosses will be remembered, if for nothing else then for Dr. Julia Harris, D.D.S. magnificently played by “the girl next door” Jennifer Aniston.
The things you will hear coming out of her mouth are so outrageous and incredibly funny. And if you combine this with her previous image as a sweet and shy girl and you’ve got yourself one fine lady. Not to mention Kevin and Collin with his new style (what a combover does to a man is unbelievable). Still, I wish that they stayed a bit more realistic, and continued as a black humor comedy. However, towards the end of the movie, everything just got a bit too silly for me.
And while we could all identify with our three leads when it comes to workplace harassment, well, apart from Dale, the crime element sets apart Horrible Bosses from other mainstream comedies. It gives it the edge it needed and it perfectly fits with the rest of the story. Plus we get the one and only Motherfucker Jones. This is the first time since The Hangover that a big movie like this positively surprised me. And I hope there will be more of them as the sequel is apparently in the works.
Bosses can be horrible in many different ways, and Nick, Dale, and Kurt know this better than everyone. Each of them has a different type of abusive boss, who tortures them on a daily basis. Three of them, drinking, come up with an ingenious plan to kill their bosses in order to have better lives and careers. However, this will turn out to be a much more difficult task than they initially envisioned.
Dirty but not filthy, Horrible Bosses is a very entertaining and fast-paced comedy. The cast did a terrific job but the script was also simply hilarious. The best part about it is that both the jokes and gags work equally well. Even the soundtrack is fucking perfect. Every time I hear The Heavy’s How You Like Me Now I remember Horrible Bosses and this puts me in a great mood. And this song is almost every fucking movie and even a lot of video games.
And yes, I understand that the plot is quite simplistic and that the whole movie feels like a collection of gags but satandammit, it fucking works. I was rolling on the floor laughing during some of the scenes. Especially the ones with Jennifer Aniston and Charlie Day. Although Nick and Kurt’s situations were much more familiar. I know it sounds a bit weird to call a black comedy a feel-good movie but I felt better after it was over. I was in a strangely energetic and positive mood, ready for whatever the world had in store for me. Which was more beer, weed, and raunchy comedies, I guess.
Finally, this is a movie about an ordinary man who couldn’t take the abuse anymore. A sort of like the Office Space situation with the whole “I might blow up the building” thing. I do recommend you check out the extended version of the movie with the running time of 1 hr 46 min.
Director: Seth Gordon
Writers: Michael Markowitz, John Francis Daley, Jonathan Goldstein
Cast: Kevin Spacey, Colin Farrell, Jennifer Aniston, Jason Bateman, Charlie Day, Jason Sudeikis
Fun Facts: Colin Farrell pretty much created his character, adding the comb-over, prosthetic stomach and that weird obsession with dragons.
Rating:
IMDb Link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1499658/
