Horrible Bosses Review

When I first heard about this movie, I wanted to see it.  It's an interesting premise with some of the best comedic actors in Hollywood.  It's also got a star studded supporting cast.  It does not disappoint.  This movie is funny from the get go and really never loses that.  Yes, a lot of the really funny stuff was in the previews.  But it's still very funny in the context of the whole movie.  For example, I still laughed out loud when Jason Bateman says that he doesn't win a lot of drag races in his Prius.

Overall, the humour in Horrible Bosses comes from good writing and superior delivery by pretty much all of the actors.  In weaving a story together with six main characters like this, you need some depth to the characters.  This allows events to unfold with a reason for it happening.  In that, there is a huge potential for confusion.  But they do it in a way that isn't confusing and it's always done to further the comedy of the movie.  So you come away feeling like you've just watched not only a funny movie but a smart movie as well.

Most of the humour is a tremendous mix of Bateman's dry, awkward delivery and Charlie Day's over the top and escalating idiocy.  In fact, at times, I felt like we could have replaced Bateman and Jason Sudekis with Glenn Howerton and Rob McElhenny and we would have had a good episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.  The whole movie felt like a caper that those guys would have gotten into and Day basically plays a slightly smarter Charlie Kelly in Horrible Bosses (they even make Day ride in the back of the car; something that would definitely happen on It's Always Sunny).  But that isn't a bad thing.  Day plays it well.  The part in Horrible Bosses was written for that type of character and we're not sick of it yet.

The only thing I had a bit of a problem with was trying to believe Sudekis as a womanizer.  His look and delivery is a bit too goofy to make anyone believe the character.  But this movie isn't really about believable characters.  All three of the bosses are caricatures and mixes of bosses that many of us have had in the past.  And, with the premise of killing each other's bosses, there's bound to be many plot holes that I would tear into in a review of a different type of film.  But this is a movie where the plot is actually just a vehicle to allow the actors to make funny jokes for a couple of hours.  And it works.  In fact, they do a really good job reconciling the whole situation.  After all, the protagonists of the film are potential murderers.  How do you reconcile their goals with keeping them as cinematic heroes?  I won't give it away but I will say that they do it.  It may not be airtight, but who cares?

See it.  It is definitely worth it.  There's a lot of laughs.  Also, if you can put Jamie Foxx and Kevin Spacey in a movie now and not only make me enjoy the characters but make me wish we had seen more of them, you've done a good job.  I'm generally not a fan of either.  If you do see it, let me know if you felt that they may have been filming in Colin Farrell's actual house too?  I get the feeling that is how he lives in real life :-).