Horrible Bosses (2011)

Horrible Bosses is a not particularly deep or shocking comedy about a trio of pals who decide to go dark side on their employers.

It’s not that these guys hate their jobs, just their bosses. Nick (Jason Bateman) is a workaholic Wall Street-type who’s been busting his hump for paranoid megalomaniac Dave Harken (Kevin Spacey) for nearly a decade. Just when Nick thinks all the 16-hour days, weekend work, and missing his grandmother’s dying moments are about to pay off with a promotion, Harken eliminates the position.

Meanwhile, lady-killer Kurt (Jason Sudeikis) finds himself unexpectedly working for his awesome boss’s (Donald Sutherland) cocaine-addicted son, Bobby (Colin Ferrell). Bobby isn’t just bad for Kurt’s career prospects, he’s bad for the environment and wants to start dumping the company’s toxic chemical waste irresponsibly so he can make more money for blow.

Finally there’s mousy, high-pitched dental assistant Dale (Charlie Day). All he wants is to marry his fiancée and not get sexually harassed by his violently horny boss lady, Dr. Julia (Jennifer Aniston).

One boozy evening, Nick, Kurt and Dale start dreaming aloud of killing off their employers. But somehow–the script doesn’t dwell too long on such pesky details–the boys start trying to turn their far-fetched dreams into reality. They ask their OnStar guide to direct them to the most dangerous bar in town, where they meet Dean “Motherfucker” Jones (Jamie Foxx), who agrees to become their murder consultant. The bad ass, whose nickname the film relishes repeating as often as possible, helps the lily-white softies hatch a plan to solve one another’s problems in a Strangers on a Train type plot.

Things don’t go exactly as planned, of course. The guys are totally inept and unsuited for a life of crime and stumble into all sorts of ridiculous shenanigans, including accidentally getting high on coke (particularly funny in the case of already squeaky-voiced Dale). It’s these misadventures, as scripted by Michael Markowitz, Jonathan Goldstein, and John Francis Daley (from television’s Bones, who also appears briefly) and directed by Seth Gordon that fuels the film and provides most of its ad hoc humor. Horrible Bosses is funny in a moment-to-moment way, if you ignore the fact that it doesn’t make that much sense. Why don’t these guys just quit their jobs? Why don’t they go to the police when things start veering out of control? But since it’s mid-summer and the theater was air-conditioned, I was happy to suspend my disbelief and go along for the ride.

It also helps that Bateman, Sudeikis and Day each do a superb job playing their usual character types (sardonic, smarmy and squirmy, respectively). But it’s the titular horrible bosses that keep the film on its rails. Spacey, adept at both comedy and drama, is like the film’s metronome, helping to keep titspacing in check. Aniston is terrific as the insane hottie with the frighteningly filthy mouth. The actress clearly relishes the opportunity to play against type and goes whole, dirty hog. Ferrell, too, has lots of fun in his Mel Grossman-esque prosthetics. If the outtakes that play over the end credits can be trusted, the balding, disgusting character would have run away with the whole movie if given a few more scenes. That is, if he could steal the spotlight away from Foxx and his hilarious character quirks (watch him drink with a straw).

Admittedly, there’s some very dark territory left unexplored by Gordon in Horrible Bosses. With the economy still struggling, there are sure to be many of us working for folks we’d rather see sleeping with the fishes. The fact that these three are just regular, honest Joes driven to extreme measures opens wide the door to more serious farce. It’s a door that Gordon politely–and perhaps smartly–closes and walks on by. After all, I’m not sure that this particular cast and this particular script could have handled those depths.

Let’s face it. This ain’t Office Space. But with a few standout performances, Horrible Bosses is a funny enough midsummer comedy. And as is often the case with bosses, sometimes good enough is good enough.