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Director: Seth Gordon
Year: 2011
Rating: R
Running Time: 1 hour, 38 minutes
Nick (Jason Bateman) hates his boss, Dave Harken (Kevin Spacey), who works him like a dog, treats him horribly and makes empty promises about promotions. Dale (Charlie Day) hates his boss, Julia (Jennifer Aniston), who sexually harasses him constantly and has threatened to try to break up his relationship if he doesn't sleep with her. Kurt (Jason Sudeikis) loves his job and his boss, Jack Pellit (Donald Sutherland), well, that is until Jack passes away and his obnoxious coke-head son Bobby (Colin Farrell) takes over the company. Bobby wants Kurt to fire all the fat people and those with disabilities because he doesn't like looking at them, and only cares about bleeding as much money out of the company as he can as quickly as possible. These three friends have been pushed to their limit and have come up with the ultimate solution: they are all going to murder their bosses.
Who hasn't had a boss they hate at some point in their life? Though we don't know if we've ever had a boss we hated so much we would want them dead, maybe there are people out there that have had thoughts such as this. For those people, this movie can play out like the ultimate revenge fantasy. At least that's what filmmakers were banking on, and you know what? They were probably right since this movie was successful enough to garner a sequel.
Each of the main characters is basically type-cast to their respected actors. Nick, played by Jason Bateman, is the same character we always see Bateman play ever since his stint as Michael Bluth on "Arrested Development." He is smart, sarcastic, usually hard working, and carries an air of superiority with him at all times. Dale is basically Charlie Day playing Charlie Day from "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," a little neurotic and kind of whiny, but down for anything, and Jason Sudeikis' Kurt is the slightly misogynistic man's man, making sex jokes and ready to sleep with any woman who says yes to him. Despite filling their standard roles, they do manage to garner a few laughs as they fumble and bumble their way through doing recon for their murder plan. Bateman, Day and Sudeikis do have wonderfully quirky chemistry together, and though some of the movie is rather stupid and feels forced, the majority of it is a fine, darkly themed comedy.
On the other end of the spectrum, we have the horrible bosses. These three big name actors take on more unique roles. Kevin Spacey plays the truly despicable Harken, who is downright cruel and sociopathic. He has no empathy and has no problem stepping on anyone to get what he wants. Spacey often plays the commanding, beefed up boss/man in charge role and always does so with a delicate mix of perfection and frightening. Aniston takes a step outside of her more typical good girl role and plays a sex crazed nymphomaniac pretty well, we thought. I got the sense that she took this film role so Brad Pitt could watch and see what he was missing because it's so out of her league. We also get the feeling that some men, as pointed out by Jason Sudeikis' character, may ask themselves, 'what's so wrong with receiving sexual advances from Jennifer Aniston?' You know, besides the fact that she's utterly insane. Colin Farrell takes on another role outside of his usually suave self. He looks completely different, sporting a bad comb-over and a slight potbelly. He plays a character who is basically the living manifestation of Axe body spray and does so convincingly and hilariously. Each of these characters are horrible in their own ways and are probably over-the-top enough to be humorous instead of just outright creeps.
All of the actors in this film make this movie what it is and carry the entire plot and script, the good and the bad. On paper, this movie may have been a disaster if it weren't for the cast of this film. Even Jamie Foxx's 'Muthafucka Jones' is pretty funny and is probably our favorite character, despite his rather small role. We can't wait to see what they have done to him in the sequel, though we're not sure how the movie will be as a whole. This movie is not the funniest comedy out there, but it does try and definitely made us laugh out loud a handful of times.
BigJ's Rating: 6/10
IMDB's Rating: 6.9/10
Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 69%
Do we recommend this movie: Sure, why not?
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One year ago, we were watching: "Trilogy of Terror"
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