It would have been nice if one of the three credited screenwriter of Horrible Bosses thought enough to write characters for the protagonists. Instead, the script–and director Gordon–rely on the “charm” of the three leads. Only, Charlie Day (as a lovable buffoon) and Jason Sudeikis (as a somewhat absent-minded buffoon) and Jason Bateman (as the one suffering having two buffoons for best friends) aren’t charming. They’re trying. Most of the movie is them running around together and it’s lame.
The funny stuff comes with the guest stars. Horrible Bosses has guest stars–the titular bosses are basically guest stars. Or Donald Sutherland and Jamie Foxx popping up and giving the film some semblance of quality before Day and Sudeikis ruin another scene. The three bosses are Jennifer Aniston, Kevin Spacey and Colin Farrell. Farrell’s in a bald cap, which is impressively believable, but he has no comic timing. Aniston is fantastic. Spacey’s good, but he’s done the role many times so he should be good at it.
The movie actually doesn’t start too bad, opening with Bateman–who can carry this kind of nonsense–and relying heavily on the guest stars. But once Sudeikis and Day take over, it quickly goes down the drain.
Maybe if Gordon was in some way a compelling director, but Bosses is very boring looking. Lousy music from Christopher Lennertz too.
The easy joke would be to call Bosses horrible, but it’s not. It’s just pedestrian. Tiresome and pedestrian, not even horrible.
ⓏⒺⓇⓄ
CREDITS
Directed by Seth Gordon; screenplay by Michael Markowitz, John Francis Daley and Jonathan M. Goldstein, based on a story by Markowitz; director of photography, David Hennings; edited by Peter Teschner; music by Christopher Lennertz; production designer, Shepherd Frankel; produced by Brett Ratner and Jay Stern; released by Warner Bros.
Starring Jason Bateman (Nick Hendricks), Charlie Day (Dale Arbus), Jason Sudeikis (Kurt Buckman), Jennifer Aniston (Dr. Julia Harris, D.D.S.), Colin Farrell (Bobby Pellitt), Kevin Spacey (Dave Harken), Donald Sutherland (Jack Pellit) and Jamie Foxx (Dean ‘MF’ Jones).
RELATED