Review: Horrible Bosses

We shouldn’t be asking why we have yet another movie about people who hate their bosses. This is one of the most universal themes in all of humanity. Everyone who’s ever had a job has disliked an employer at some point. The real question is why there aren’t MORE movies about it.

But until Hollywood gets on the ball and starts addressing this issue more regularly, we can occupy ourselves with Horrible Bosses, a jubilant, vulgar, and extremely funny farce about three men who set out to kill their respective employers. Written by Michael Markowitz, rewritten by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein (they’re all TV scribes), and directed by Seth Gordon (Four Christmases), the comedy is dark and silly, with no one learning any lessons and only the pre-defined bad guys suffering any real consequences. In essence, the movie is set in Farceland, not reality. So don’t try this at home.

The men, friends since high school, are played by Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis (SNL), and Charlie Day (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia). If you’re familiar with these guys’ work, you’ll notice they play to their strengths. Bateman is Nick, a sensible and deadpan financial adviser whose boss, Harken (Kevin Spacey), is a cruel taskmaster. Sudeikis is Kurt, a fun-loving adult (he’s an accountant) with a strong undercurrent of frat boy about him (he’s a horndog), whose new supervisor, Bobby (Colin Farrell), is a malignant cocaine addict. Day’s character, Dale the dental assistant, is high-strung and moronic. He works for a sultry D.D.S. (Jennifer Aniston) who constantly, graphically, and unambiguously sexually harasses him all day, every day.

It is clear that Harken and Bobby are evil — not misunderstood, not gruff with hearts of gold, but genuinely evil. They say and do things that make them worthy of death, at least in broad, dark-comedy terms. Dr. Julia, on the other hand, isn’t malicious in her efforts to have sex with Dale. (Kurt and Nick have a hard time even accepting that Dale’s problem is even a serious problem.) But Dale is engaged to a nice girl (Lindsay Sloane) and is eager to be a devoted, monogamous husband.

While commiserating over beers one night, Nick, Kurt, and Dale come to the conclusion that if they hired a hitman to bump off their bosses, well, that would be better for them, and for the world in general. Nick, the rational one — the Jason Bateman one — comes to his senses the next day, of course … just in time for Harken to reach new depths of despicableness and make Nick change his mind back again.

That’s how the film operates: simply and clean, nakedly refusing to make any effort to convince us that three normal guys would actually set out to assassinate their bosses. How blithely oversimplified is the story? When the guys face the obvious, premise-ruining question of why they don’t just quit their jobs, they immediately — and I mean right that minute — run into an old classmate who’s unemployed and desperate. That gives them all the answer they need: the job market is bad; ergo, the only option is to remain employed and kill their bosses. The matter is settled, let’s move on.

So yes, from a structural standpoint, this is barely even a story. It’s more like a series of comedy sketches — or like an episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, in which Charlie Day plays essentially the same unhinged imbecile character he does here. Day, Sudeikis, and Bateman are a dream team of comic actors. They cover the spectrum of styles (Day all frenetic, Bateman all buttoned-down, Sudeikis somewhere in between), and each has killer timing. The script gives them plenty of funny things to say, but their delivery can turn even so-so lines into huge laughs. The same screenplay shot by the same director but with three different actors could easily have been only half as funny.

The supporting cast is outrageously good, too. Farrell and Aniston give devastatingly original performances as characters who are unlike anyone they’ve played before. Spacey is on somewhat more familiar ground as a mean weasel, but he gets to go to new, nutty places with it. There’s also Jamie Foxx as a gun-for-hire with the last name Jones, first name unprintable, plus Ioan Gruffudd as a professional that Dale finds on Craigslist.

The humor is bawdy, for sure. With Dr. Julia, that’s the whole point: the more straight-up nasty she is, the more effective the character is. Everyone else’s raunchiness is less aggressive and more cheerful, and generally funny enough to justify itself. The guys (or perhaps I should say the screenwriters) are fixated on butt-related matters, but they still come across as white-collar professionals rather than Judd Apatow slackers. (Seth Rogen, Michael Cera, and Jonah Hill: there’s a good example of three very funny actors who would have been completely wrong for this movie.)

Things spiral deliriously out of control as the guys’ plan falls apart (it wasn’t formulated very well to begin with), and Bateman, Day, and Sudeikis have an easy rapport that keeps the comic energy up even when the story goes off into weird directions. This should be therapeutic for anyone who’s ever hated a boss. Which, as I said, is pretty much everyone.

Grade: B+

10 Horrible Movie Bosses

In honor of the upcoming dark comedy, Horrible Bosses, we thought we’d look back at some of cinema’s most notoriously awful big cheeses. Some of them might even surprise you!

Franklin Hart Jr., Nine to Five

Franklin Hart thought he could still get away with womanizing, abuse and sexual harassment. He thought he was Don Draper, but he wasn’t Don Draper. He was Dabney Coleman. And he was at least two decades too late.

Buddy Ackerman, Swimming with Sharks

Buddy will backstab, insult and sell you out. Buddy will torture for his own amusement, deny you your most essential rights as a human being (such as urinating or eating lunch) and fire you when you are working at your hardest on his behalf. He sees politeness as weakness and treats kindness with disdain. And he will only respect you if you pull a gun in his face and beat him with it. Come to think of it, maybe Buddy’s not so bad. At least the guy has a code.

Bill Lumbergh, Office Space

I’ve worked for guys like Lumbergh before. They float around clueless, watching over your shoulder, because they are bored to death. They will half-listen to your concerns as they check the time on their watch. But Lumbergh has the ability to take it to another level, torturing poor Milton, passing the buck to accounting, not giving a hoot that the poor fella is working next to a boiler and quite possibly not even getting paid. Lumbergh is weak when confronted, but he is smooth just until.

Jeff D. Sheldrake, The Apartment

You would think it would be beneath a superior like Sheldrake to borrow C.C. Baxter’s (his employee) apartment so he could have an affair with some young chippy in the office. But, no, Sheldrake practically makes a sport of it. You’d think he’d check into a hotel like every other scumbag. But using his administrative assistant’s apartment makes more sense when you think about it. It’s cheaper and probably more discreet (if C.C. knows what’s good for him). Even Ms. Kubelik, whom C.C. has a crush on, isn’t safe from the man. He’s a smug one too, that Sheldrake. Disingenuous, irresponsible and apathetic, Sheldrake is a real smarmy ass.

Dr. Evil, The Austin Powers Movies

Imagine being Number 2. You’re named after a toilet deposit and your whole life, even when you had Rob Lowe-good looks, you’ve been lackey to one of the biggest morons in evildom. You’re smarter than him and you’re probably more evil than him (you know Dr. Evil found a way to cheat on those evil tests). But there you are, in the Number 2 spot, full of lofty expectations. Your employees are a bunch of anonymous henchmen who you suspect have grown up on a diet of paint chips. And yet despite all of this you have remained loyal while Dr. Evil was incapacitated. You have turned his evil empire into a resounding billion-dollar success. You get none of the praise and all the blame. And the problem with Dr. Evil is that he doesn’t recognize this. He doesn’t know his own employees. He hasn’t properly audited his departments of evil. And he doesn’t hold himself up to the same standards he holds for everyone else. He assumes everything will go according to plan despite a history of virtually nothing going to plan. He makes Number 2 wear an eye patch even though the guy has 20/20 vision and humiliates him with a beach volley ball. He sinks as low as to appear on Jerry Springer (there’s “new money” for you). He’s a terrible father to both his clone and biological son. He doesn’t even flinch when they handle loaded weapons. His ideas are stale and unoriginal and he is clueless when it comes to demanding a proper ransom. A good general listens to his advisers but Dr. Evil never listens to the good, reasonable and sound advice by those who only want to see him succeed. He is often a laughing stock amongst his peers, rivals and employees. Nothing works in his Evil Lair, not even the booby-trapped seats designed to punish his insolent inner circle. He isn’t on this list because he is an evil boss. He is on this list because he is an incompetent one.

Malcolm Tucker, In the Loop

Working for Malcolm is kind of like walking on eggshells if under the patch of eggshells were scores of Nile crocodiles who have been beaten with sticks and starved for weeks. Not unlike Spacey’s Buddy Ackerman, he has the aggravating ability to mercilessly destroy you with wit and sarcasm. With Malcolm, words truly will break your bones. Even capable employees like Judy Molloy aren’t safe from his wrath. WARNING: Strong language.

Katharine Parker, Working Girl

You have to say this much for Parker, she’s got cajones. She steals her secretary’s ideas and passes them on as her own. That’s pretty bad. The fact that it leads to a potentially lucrative deal for the company they work for, that would make the already (perhaps) over-achieving Parker that much more of a standout makes it worse. I’m sure Tess McGill was all for helping the team and all but getting backstabbed like that had to hurt. But the real cardinal sins Parker commits in my book?

1. Using an injury for sympathy
2. Bad fainting

Darth Vader, Star Wars Trilogy

I don’t see the benefit of being a good and loyal employee of the Galactic Empire. First of all, you kind of have to sell your soul given the fact that you are working for a body of government whose sole purpose is to enslave and consume the entire galaxy. Not even Hitler (or Jabba the Hut, for that matter) was so gluttonous. I understand it’s a Wookie-eat-Wookie world out there, though so you do what you have to do to put food on the table. But promotions are practically death sentences. Lord Vader’s expectations are completely unreasonable and his response to (what he would consider) failure — even if he accepts your apology — is, we could argue, a tad over-the-top. If you just keep your head down as some low-level tech guy or communications officer, you can at least pray some jerk-Rebel cruiser doesn’t attack you (or your superior officers) before your retirement package kicks in. That last thing you want to hear is some heavy breathing sociopath in a mask congratulating you on your promotion before warning you not to screw up like your last 17 bosses. No, thank you.

Miranda Priestly, The Devil Wears Prada

She has Vader-like expectations from her employees but I will say this for Vader: at least he wasn’t a pompous ass who was bitter because he felt he was so misunderstood. And he didn’t come packaged with all the irritating sighs and hand gestures. If Vader made a hand gesture, it probably meant your throat was collapsing. I’ll take that over hourly humiliation any day.

Dumbledore, The Harry Potter Series

I’m sorry, kids, Dumbledore is a real sick ticket. First of all, isn’t it a little odd that year after year he passed up the most qualified teacher at Hogwarts to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts (Professor Snape), simply because it amused him? Snape was born to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts. That would be like passing over  Jack Nicholson as the devil in The Witches of Eastwick or Flavor Flav as Flavor Flav in Flavor of Love. These are things you just don’t do because they are obvious to the rest of the world. Not to mention the fact that by passing up Snape Dumbledore was effectively putting children’s lives in danger. How so? Well let’s take a look at some of the primo hirings Dumbeldore made in place of Snape: Two murderers, one incompetent baboon, a werewolf, a man basically responsible for giving Lord Voldemort unlimited power and quite possibly the meanest and most miserable cat-loving freak on the face of the earth. So yeah, I think that qualifies him as a horrible boss.