Horrible Bosses

A big chunk of the Horrible Bosses advertising discussed who the idea of murdering your boss is something a lot of people have imagined. It’s relatable. Well, I don’t think that’s true. But the reason that the movie works is because the bosses go ten steps further than any real person would. Jason Bateman, Charlie Day and Jason Sudeikis play the unfortunate employees of Jennifer Aniston, Colin Ferrell and Kevin Spacey’s characters. Maybe I’m just naive, but I have enough faith in the legal system to think that these three criminals would have to answer for their constant illegalities. But the over-the-top antics are what make the movie funny.

The biggest feud seems to be between Bateman and Spacey’s characters, which makes sense because they’re the most famous pair. Interestingly enough Bateman isn’t playing the everyday family man like he usually is. In fact, the viewer gets hardly any look into the personal lives of the three leads, except for Day. This helps prevent the film from being like all other R rated buddy comedies. The other two professional quarrels, Sudeikis- Ferrell, and Day- Aniston seem like telling any police officer would have solved the problem straight away, but this is the movies and that wouldn’t be very comical.

Being split up between so many characters, Horrible Bosses moves right along. Six featured characters seem like a lot for this kind of movie, but it works quite well. Then support from Jamie Foxx doesn’t hurt either. In fact, I probably laughed at his scenes the most. This may not be on par with his Oscar winning turn in Ray, but he does play the best-named character this year. Overall, the way the script allows for the film to be about a certain series of events and not the full lives of the individual characters makes Horrible Bosses successful. And it may just be me, but Day seems to be channeling his best Bobcat Goldthwait impression for half of the movie. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a lot less annoying, but there’s an odd similarity. (7.9 out of 10)