Horrible Bosses: The Review

Horrible Bosses [2011]

Horrible Bosses Movie Poster

So I have pretty much nothing to do today and I think someone in my family told me that I should watch the movie Horrible Bosses. I thought why not, I like Jason Bateman as an actor ever since I watched the entire Arrested Development series (and multiple times), so I turned it on and just let it run. My mistake. Here's the review.

Synopsis:

So these three men have three bosses that they totally hate, one of which is a psycho, one that's a whore, and one that's a spoiled brat. And the whole movie starts out showing you each person's relationship with their boss and how it just is not working out. Then everything starts spiraling out of control as their bosses get worse which, of course, leads to the great idea that they should just kill their bosses. From there, this is supposed to be a comedy about the three of them and their long journey to kill each others bosses to make life easier for the other ones.

Verdict: 2.5 / 5 Stars

Now like I said, I really like Jason Bateman. And the idea behind this movie is not a terrible one, I mean it's a little bit cliche now that we've had a bunch of movies that try and to mimic the classic Office Space [1999]. But unfortunately the cast and characters left me feeling like this movie needed something. Like the villains are perfect, but the three main characters you just slowly lose care for over time. For instance, Jason Bateman plays Nick Hendricks who is a well-to-do guy that thinks the only way to get promoted is to suck-up to his boss, but it makes him seem rather spineless in the long run. Charlie Day plays Dale Arbus who's an all-around annoying guy (I actually was really getting annoyed with him the more the movie went on). And last, Jason Sudeikis plays the sex addict. So really, because these guys have these abnormal qualities, you just over time lose care for them and honestly start believing that maybe they got what they deserved.

But with that out of mind while I watched this, because I didn't think that until just over half-way through the movie, I still found the plot to be rather not-thoughtout. Like they'd give these three guys a situation, something would happen, they'd give them another situation, something new would happen. That's just not how I like my movies. I like it when you can see there was a lot of thought behind every scene and why things happen, when mysteries go from start to finish and things you didn't think were important become important. This one was more like here's some random stuff, lets let the characters roll off of it and make a movie. That's what killed it for me and led me to boredom halfway through.

And on top of that, I sort of wonder if the writers were looking for spots to even make jokes, because I honestly don't get the comedy in this movie all too well. It's kind of like here's a random thought, then move on. But because the context is so drowned out by screaming and annoyance, I just didn't think it was funny. Its like going to a restaurant, you don't want to have an entire meal that tastes bland but more of a sporadic assortment of complimenting flavors. This was a bland meal.

My personal feelings? 3/5 stars at first until I realized I'd never come back for this dish. I downed it to 2.5/5 stars for that reason.