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It is said that a man will stand strong in the face of pure evil. If this is true, then this a film about three individuals who are not real men. In the presence of evil they do not stand strong; not in the slightest. Instead, they cower, complain and conspire. In the film Horrible Bosses, three friends plan to remove the one obstacle that prevents them from knowing true happiness: their three bosses. The big problem is that none of them are good at anything other than their daily jobs; none of which have to do with murder. There is also the issue that collectively they have less backbone than your average bacterium. This is so not going to go over well.
Nick Hendricks (Jason Bateman) is working his way up the corporate ladder. He has been a model employee and swears that he will get the upcoming promotion to senior VP. Kurt Buckman (Jason Sudekis) loves his job and has a wonderful boss. . . until said boss dies of a heart attack and his douche of a son takes over. At that moment, heaven literally turned to hell for this guy. Dale Arbus (Charlie Day) has a smoking hot boss that basically wants her assistant to “put in a lot of overtime.” Many would ask what the problem is there (as his buddies do). Dale’s dilemma is that he is engaged and very much wants to be faithful to his future wife. The irony here is that of the three, only Bateman’s character has a serious issue. Dale’s boss wants the dong – big deal, bone her or get a new job. Kurt’s boss is a jerk and he hates his job – join the club buddy. Once again, deal with it or find a new job. Nick however has a boss that truly values him as a slave. He went so far as to threaten to blacklist him if he tried to leave and he has no intention of letting him advance his career position. Killing his boss might really be the only way out. So the three agree to take out each others’ bosses. All three are committed to the dirty deed but even they have the feeling that this will go horribly wrong. You really need to go and see just how right they are.
Bateman, Sudekis and Day are like a modern Three Stooges in this movie. The comedy was not forced and it just kept coming at you. While it probably will not happen, it would be great to see them work together again as a comedic team since there has not been a good one in ages. Kevin Spacey managed to play his most evil role to date. He made his Lex Luthor look like Mr. Magoo. Jennifer Aniston gets to play the other side of the coin from her role in Office Space and she does a magnificent job of driving Charlie Day insane. How do you try to bang someone on top of their unconscious fiancée? Colin Farrell put in extra effort to be an ass in this role with spectacular results. It is always refreshing to see an actor step out of their normal range and do a good job with a role you would never expect them to take. Combine elements like that with a stellar cast and it would be pretty difficult to get a bad movie.
Horrible Bosses to me is how a comedy should be done. The comedy was not forced and the characters just had a good time being idiots. Not going to name any other movies, but this is definitely the funniest movie to come out so far this year and it has no competition. Never has sexual harassment, corporate piracy and environmental irresponsibility been so funny. The movie also taught me that it is not a crime to stick someone else’s personal belongings up your ass. I don’t know why I would ever need or even want to know that, but you know what they say, “knowing is half the battle.” Go see this movie and realize that recycled bachelor party hijinks should not be passed off as a comedy.
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