3 Bosses Vs. 3 Employees.
First up is Kevin Spacey, the quintessential boss from hell. Next is Colin Farrell, practically in disguise through the film, is a boss whose nicest of moments can make Spacey look like Mr. Rogers. Lastly you have Jennifer Aniston as the more subtle head honcho, if subtlety includes sexual blackmail with herself as the sex object and poor Charlie Day as the unwilling underling.
Day (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia), Jason Bateman, and Jason Sudeikis do what any disgruntled, conniving employees would do: they head to the hood and seek help from “hit man” Jamie Foxx. Once the actual eradication plan commences we’re on our way to “farce heaven” despite a few bumps of inanity along the road. The silliness is handled by the allstar cast who bring up the proceedings several notches from what must look on paper like a thankless, over-the-top script. Employees seeking to off their bosses? Better have actors who can improvise their way around anything including dumb plot devices and callous references galore. Luckily raunch as funny as this leaves a lot of room for allowance.
None of it would have worked so well if not for Spacey’s ability to scare the wits out of us with the meanest most egotistical horse’s ass in recent screen memory. Nor Farrell’s cocaine-addled heir to a company handed to him by his father (Donald Sutherland). (It’s actually believably in character when his first order to Sudeikis is to “fire all the fat people” since this guys such a lunatic.) Nor Aniston’s sex maniac dentist who keeps trying to compromise recently engaged Day into an operating room tryst. Nor Foxx’s sterotyped “M.F.” Jones character, who’s essentially a spoof on spoof.
Then there’s the three leads whose chemistry with each other is sharp and flows whether they’re victims of their bosses nasty mischief or perpetrators of their own. Day actually commented in an interview that when he first shot a scene with Kevin Spacey he felt, “Wow that’s Kevin Spacey.” This attitude shows in the scene and it’s not a bad thing. Spacey at his best commands a certain cinematic gravitas and here he soars.
Director Seth Gordon not only cast this film perfectly, he ought to be commended for giving his actors free reign. As a result we end up having a rip-roaring time with Horrible Bosses despite the film’s tone deafness to anything that might have lifted it above the merely comic. Its tunnel vision looks for the next outrageous gag and puts welcomed blinders on the actual plight of the poor working guy. Here we’re just forgetting reality and that’s sweet.
7 pink slips out of 10
