Making a good R-rated comedy is all about pushing buttons. By that I don’t mean that you need to be as crude as possible, though that can help. It’s more about how far you can push your premise for the most laughs possible. There’s always a breaking point, and comedic filmmakers face the daunting challenge of pushing right up against it without going too far. Unfortunately, the new comedy Horrible Bosses—the second narrative feature from director Seth Gordon—spends too much time meandering and not enough time reaching for its full potential. The premise—a few dudes plot to kill their bosses—seems ripe for some great black humor, but it only comes in fits and starts. When it should be pushing, it decides to become something far less consequential. This should be anything but a light comedy, but how come it feels like one?
The three protagonists are as follows: Nick Hendricks (Jason Bateman) spends each day getting bullied by his bloodthirsty boss Dave Harken (Kevin Spacey), Kurt Buckman (Jason Sudeikis) feels like his new boss Bobby Pellitt (a criminally underused Colin Farrell) is driving the company into the ground for his own personal profit, and Dale Arbus (Charlie Day) is the constant target of Dr. Julia Harris’ (Jennifer Aniston) sexual harassment. Once they’ve had enough, a plot is devised where each of them will murder each other’s bosses. Of course, things don’t go very smoothly at all, and the film has quite a few twists in store.
Unfortunately, these twists—which I shan’t reveal here—only serve to let the protagonists off the hook. There never really comes a moment where they are forced to contemplate their options. I’m not saying the film should have entered all-out dramatic territory, but none of the film’s events really have all that much weight. These are three guys who have conspired to murder three human beings, and while that premise has a ton of potential the film seems to grow tired of it far too early. By the time the climax rolls around, Horrible Bosses has devolved into an over-the-top comedic chase film, and not a particularly interesting one. This is a film that seems designed to take risks, but they never come. When it should be trying for more, it goes for something considerably safer, and that’s a shame
None of the film’s flaws can be blamed on the cast; all of whom turn in very funny performances. What’s problematic is that they too often feel like they’ve been left out in the cold and forced to create much of the comedy with their bare hands. They’re often successful, but that only makes the film feel all the more unfocused. Where Bad Teacher was enhanced by its lack of a single narrative—it was about creating the world of John Adams Middle School more than anything else—a plot-driven comedy like Horrible Bosses needs a great deal of forward momentum, yet it never quite materializes. The world-building excuse can’t be used for this film, as we really don’t know anything about the characters. With the exception of Day, we don’t know if they have families or lives outside of work and their friendship with each other. Horrible Bosses tells us infinitely more about the bosses than the angry employees, and the characterizations are too reliant on the personalities of the actors themselves.
Yet it’s these personalities that maintain the film’s infrequent hilarity. Bateman is reliable as always, Spacey is wonderfully maniacal, and Aniston shows us a far funnier side of herself than we’ve seen in a long, long time. (She needs to be taking far more roles like this.) The one who steals the film, however, is Charlie Day. Many will know him from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, but for the uninitiated this could be the film that starts paving his road to well-deserved comedy stardom. I am of the belief that Day is one of the most naturally funny screen presences I’ve ever seen, as he can take the most benign line of dialogue and turn it into something truly hilarious. There’s a sequence a bit into Horrible Bosses where Day ingests an illicit substance, and for the next 15-odd minutes he provides an endless string of laughs that the film never comes close to topping. He brings a manic, propulsive energy to his performance, and if the rest of the film had tried to emulate that, Horrible Bosses could have been something special indeed. Instead, it amounts to little more than a near-miss.
GRADE: C+
I thought this was pretty funny. Bateman, Day and Sudeikis had really great chemistry and Aniston, Spacey, and Farrell were all pretty evil and villainous as the bosses.. I did wish it would have gotten a bit darker with it's subject at certain times but overall, pretty good I thought. Good Review! Check out mine when you can!
ReplyDeleteYou're not wrong, I just felt that I couldn't give it a pass because it's kind of funny.
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