CINEMA KNIFE FIGHT: HORRIBLE BOSSES
By L.L. Soares and Kelly Laymon

(THE SCENE: A bar. L.L. SOARES is drinking a tall glass of Bass Ale, when KELLY LAYMON walks in)

LS: So you want to be a knife fighter, huh?

KL (sits at the bar): I thought I’d take a stab at it.

LS: Well, I know you’re a big fan of R-rated comedies, so I thought you might want to help me review the new one, HORRIBLE BOSSES.

KL (holds her head): Okay. But I was up last night drinking too much, so can you start this one?

LS: Sure. HORRIBLE BOSSES is about three guys who have reached the end of their rope.

Nick Hendricks (Jason Bateman), Dale Arbus (Charlie Day) and Kurt Buckman (Jason Sudeikis) are three men whose jobs are miserable, mainly due to their awful bosses.

Nick works in an office and is verbally abused and publicly humiliated by his boss, Dave Harken (Kevin Spacey).Dale is a dental assistant to a pervy dentist, Julia Harris (Jennifer Aniston), who constantly comes on to him and sexually harasses him, even though he just got engaged. And Kurt actually gets along with his boss, Jack Pellitt (Donald Sutherland), until the man has a heart attack and his cokehead son, Bobby (Colin Farrell) takes over the company, intent on running it into the ground to pay for his drugs and hookers.

So what are three guys supposed to do when life hands them gigantic lemons?

They go to a bad part of town to find a hitman who will get rid of their problems (yes, they’re that unhappy!), but instead they find Dean Jones (Jamie Foxx), who has a rather colorful nickname. Jones won’t actually do the jobs, but he does offer to be their “murder consultant.” He suggests that they kill off each other’s bosses, who they don’t know, since that way there would be no logical motive to trace back to them (this, of course, makes no sense, because there is a way to trace it back to them – the three guys are friends and constantly together).

This seems like good advice at the time, but, as is always the case in movies like this, nothing goes according to plan.

Yes, it’s a variation of Alfred Hitchock’s STRANGERS ON A TRAIN (1951) where Robert Walker as psychotic Bruno Anthony suggests a similar arrangement to pro tennis player Guy Haines (Farley Granger). Except this time it’s played for laughs.

KL: STRANGERS ON A TRAIN seems to be the new go-to reference of the moment. Aside from this, there were recently episodes of the TV shows CASTLE and MODERN FAMILY that used that premise.

LS: I guess the best way to tell if a comedy works is how often you laugh, and I have to admit, I laughed a lot during HORRIBLE BOSSES.

KL: Which was a nice change after BAD TEACHER, which was mediocre at best. That was a terrible waste of some really good comedic actors (Cameron Diaz, Jason Segel and Phyllis Smith. I can’t stand Justin Timberlake). Not only did I not laugh much, but I was dying to check my cell phone to see what time it was. With HORRIBLE BOSSES, they made great use of their talented cast. Even right down to the supporting characters who only had a scene or two.

LS: I don’t know, I actually didn’t mind BAD TEACHER that much. It wasn’t terrific, but it had some laughs. I do think, though that HORRIBLE BOSSES is a better movie.

Okay, first off, let’s look at the three schmucks who hate their bosses. Jason Bateman has actually become a real go-to guy for this kind of thing. I remember when he was a child actor (and later teen heartthrob) on shows like SILVER SPOONS (1982 – 1984) and VALERIE’S FAMILY (probably better known as THE HOGAN FAMILY [1986 – 1991]).He still worked after those shows, but seemed to be yet another child actor who wasn’t as famous once he got older, until he got the lead as Michael Bluth on the cult-favorite television show ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT (2003 – 2006). He was given the chance to reinvent himself, and suddenly people were noticing that he had grown up to be a pretty good comic actor. This has led to lots of movies, and rightly so. Bateman is a very likable straight man in comedies like this – the one who seems most likely to stay sane when everything around him goes insane – and he’s good here as well as the voice of reason, until reason flies out the door.

KL: I was a huge Bateman fan when I was little, so I love that I’m still a fan of his work. I didn’t have many childhood favorites, so it’s nice that I still like and respect the two biggies…Bateman and Neil Patrick Harris. (Even though I think Harris’s show HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER is unwatchable at this point.) So while I never got into ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT, it’s been great to see Bateman make solid movie after solid movie for the past ten years or so. Aside from comedy, he’s great with drama, too. I loved THE KINGDOM (2007), which, oddly enough, also had him paired with Jamie Foxx.

LS: Charlie Day is most famous for playing dim-witted Charlie Kelly on the cult FX series, IT’S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA, but he recently started branching out into movies as well, appearing in the Drew Barrymore comedy GOING THE DISTANCE (2010) this one, and hopefully there’s more in the pipeline. He’s very funny on SUNNY, and is the goofy friend here in HORRIBLE BOSSES. His complaints about his boss are also the hardest to sympathize with, mainly because Jennifer Aniston is extremely hot in this movie, and his friends can’t understand why he’s so terrified of her advances. His entire dilemma is played for laughs.

KL: And they were wise to address that issue over a beer at their bar immediately with a, “Hey, your situation doesn’t sound all that bad.”

LS: Yeah, Dale’s friends never take his predicament very seriously, compared to their own demented bosses. And his fiancée seems as dopey as he is. You almost wonder why he doesn’t jump at the chance to be with Aniston.

KL: I love Jennifer Aniston and am constantly surprised by her bad film choices. Other than THE GOOD GIRL (2002), FRIENDS WITH MONEY (2006), DERAILED (2005), OFFICE SPACE (1999), HE’S JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU (2009), THE SWITCH (2010), and, even, MARLEY & ME (2008), she’s done a ton of really forgettable horrible romantic comedies that are tough to sit through.

LS: For someone who has made a lot of bad film choices, you sure have a looooong list of movies she was in that you like!

KL: She’s made sooo many movies though!  The list of good ones is way shorter than the giant list of stinkers.

LS: As for me, I never cared for Aniston much. I was not a fan of  her hit show, FRIENDS, and I haven’t been eager to check out too many of her movies, since most of them sound horrible. But I do agree with you about THE GOOD GIRL and especially OFFICE SPACE. And don’t forget that she was also in 1993’s LEPRECHAUN.

Jason Sudeikis is a cast member of SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE (and 30 ROCK), who has been also been stretching out into film with roles, such as in GOING THE DISTANCE (along with Charlie Day) and the even more recent comedy, HALL PASS (2011).

KL: The cast crossover was constantly running through my head. From THE KINGDOM to THE SWITCH to GOING THE DISTANCE, which are all favorites of mine.

LS: All three of our “heroes” here are funny guys with strong television resumes, and they’re all given a chance to be funny in HORRIBLE BOSSES. The three of them have real chemistry, and you believe that they would be friends.

The bad guys are all really good here as well. Spacey is downright lethal as a megalomaniac nutjob similar to another evil boss, the Hollywood agent, Buddy Ackerman, who he played in 1994’s SWIMMING WITH SHARKS. Nobody plays a completely smug bastard as well as he does.

Colin Farrell is pretty good as the borderline psychotic Bobby Pellitt (with a bad comb-over, a giant box of coke, and a hilarious painting of himself as a kung fu master on his living room wall). And Aniston is a revelation as Dr. Harris. I never understood why she was such a big star, but in HORRIBLE BOSSES, she has finally won me over. Her sexually predatory character might be a bit of a shock for people who are used to a sweet and wholesome Aniston, and her performance here is kind of fearless. She’s also the sexiest I have ever seen her in HORRIBLE BOSSES. Of course, the entire storyline with her and Dale is the least believable in the movie, but that just adds to the absurdity of it.

KL: The parallels to SWIMMING WITH SHARKS amused me as well. Spacey is great with playing psycho bosses. And to see Aniston in another comedy about work environments was nice, given her history with the cult favorite, OFFICE SPACE. Although she wasn’t really part of the office humor in that one. Since I don’t like Colin Farrell one bit, I was glad he wasn’t in it much. Hey, he was in the film version of MIAMI VICE with Jamie Foxx. The overlaps don’t stop!

LS: I don’t mind Farrell, and I think he’s pretty funny in this movie. Especially all the goofy kung fu references from the painting to his phone’s ringtone (“Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting”). But I think Spacey and Aniston are even better.

Put all these talented people in a movie with a funny script and some truly hilarious moments, and you can’t go wrong. I liked this one a lot. Some of the funniest moments include:

Dale dropping a box of cocaine on the carpet while doing a stake-out of Bobby Pellitt’s house. It’s like a variation on a similar scene in Woody Allen’s classic ANNIE HALL (1977), but it’s still pretty funny, especially when he tries to get it all back in the box.

KL: I think that was, hands down, the funniest scene. Even though large portions of it had been shown in the trailers, it still held up. And if I ever have to vacuum up large quantities of cocaine, I’ll always remember to empty the dust buster first.

LS: I always hate when they give away the best jokes in the trailer.

Also any scene where the three dopes have a conversation with Jamie’s Foxx (who is also pretty hilarious here), is pretty memorable.

KL: The crappiest thug ever.

LS: The guys also have a clandestine meeting with a “Wet Works” specialist (Ioan Grufudd) in a cheap motel room, that is pretty outrageous.

KL: They were pretty awful with hiring thugs. But it’s always good to highlight the dangers of using Craig’s List for, well, just about anything.

LS: You said it. There’s also a funny interrogation scene with two weary cops (Wendell Pierce from the HBO series THE WIRE and comedian Ron White).

There are a lot more funny scenes. And the plot takes some interesting twists and turns along with the way.

KL: Some of my other thoughts…I really didn’t expect any of the bosses to die, so there was a small surprise. And that’s all I’ll say.

LS: Yeah, let’s leave it at that.

KL: Tied into that…having been a fan of Julie Bowen from her days on the show ED (2000 – 2004), and now with MODERN FAMILY, I wish there had been more with her. Though her role as Kevin Spacey’s wife ends up playing a bigger role in some of the fall-out than her actual screen time.

LS: She was also one of the best things about BOSTON LEGAL (2005 – 2008), too. I’ve always liked Bowen and she’s very good here in a smaller role. And her character’s scenes with Sudeikis are pretty funny.

KL: The key to any movie is whether or not you can relate to the characters. That’s why I particularly loved THE HANGOVER (2009), FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL (2008), and THE 40-YEAR-OLD VIRGIN (2005). Who among us hasn’t woken up on the floor and said, “What the f*#@ happened last night?” or gone through an awkward break-up or been painfully unsuccessful when it comes to dating. That’s why the really outrageous comedies don’t work for me. I could believe what was going on here. That three idiots could reach a breaking point significant enough that they’d…snap!

LS: I think some comedies can get the balance wrong, though. If you add too much “heart” and sentimentality, it ruins a movie for me. I want to care about characters, but if it’s a comedy, I also want to be able to laugh at them. And I think HORRIBLE BOSSES strikes a good balance.

So I guess that’s our review. I give HORRIBLE BOSSES – three and a half knives. What about you, Kel?

KL: I give it four knives. Very funny. The balance was just right. I loved this movie. I want to marry Charlie Day.  And Jason Bateman.  And Jason Sudeikis. I think that makes me a whore, huh?

LS: That’s understandable, I guess. I’ll take Aniston and Julie Bowen myself.

(MICHAEL ARRUDA comes in to the bar and sees LS and KL drinking)

MA: Hey, I thought we were going to review HORRIBLE BOSSES this weekend!

LS: Sorry, pal. Kelly got here first.

MA: That’s not fair.

LS: Life’s not fair. But there’s always next time.

MA (to camera): Oh well, I guess that’s Cinema Knife Fight for this week. See you all next time.

-END-

© Copyright 2011 by L.L. Soares and Kelly Laymon

L.L. Soares gives HORRIBLE BOSSES -  3 and a half knives

Kelly Laymon gives HORRIBLE BOSSES - 4 knives!

This entry was posted on July 11, 2011 at 4:14 am and is filed under 2011, Cinema Knife Fights, Comedies, Kelly Laymon Reviews, LL Soares Reviews, R-Rated Comedy with tags Charlie Day, cinema knife fight, Colin Farrell, Horrible Bosses, Jamie Foxx, Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis, Jennifer Aniston, Kevin Spacey, R-Rated Comedy, Strangers on a Train. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.