Sunday, July 10, 2011

Horrible Bosses - Movie Review

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Starring Jason Bateman, Charlie Day, Jason Sudeikis, Kevin Spacey, Jennifer Aniston, Colin Farrell, Jamie Foxx, Donald Sutherland, Julie Bowen, Wendell Peirce and Iaon Gruffudd.
Directed by Seth Gordon.


If The Hangover was Zack Galifianakis's introduction to the mainstream, then this movie will serve as Charlie Day's. He's primarily known as the guy from FX's It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. I've never watched that show, but this makes me want to put Season 1 in my Netflix queue. I mainly know him as the guy from Going the Distance. He and Jason Sudeikis served as the two best friends to Justin Long, which was fine and dandy but to not much effect. Here the two have more to work with and make the most of it, but I focus on Day because he gets the biggest laughs in the movie.

He plays Dale, a dental assistant with a nympho boss (Jennifer Aniston) who likes to do all sorts of wrong things over the bodies of her drugged-unconscious patients. Dale's happily engaged and doesn't want to endanger that, but his boss doesn't care; she likes sexually harrassing him on a daily basis.

Then there's Nick (Jason Bateman), who's the first to arrive and the last to leave his job, under the thumb of the company's menacing president, but he takes it all because he's been led to believe he's up for a promotion. When the promotion doesn't happen and threatens to quit, his boss (Kevin Spacey, most horrible of the bosses, and I mean that in a good way) lets him know he'll trash his reputation to ensure he'll never work in this town again.

Lastly there's Kurt (Sudeikis) who loves his job at a chemical company until his boos dies. The boss's cokehead son (Colin Farrell) becomes the new president and starts using company funds as his own piggy-bank.

None of the three feel they can quit, but eventually they come up with a plan thanks to "murder consultant" Dean 'M.F.' Jones (Jamie Foxx, in an effectively funny supporting role) - they decide they will kill each other's bosses. Naturally they suck at it.

The chemistry between the three leads is great, and there are several chuckles throughout the movie. It never broke into that magical realm where comedies become classics. It's funny enough that it's worth seeing. ("How's that for a pull quote, Abbott?")

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