This movie made me laugh, and let me have fun for just over an hour and a half. It features a great ensemble cast, and you get to see some high profile actors take smaller roles; or roles you'd never expect them to pull off so effectively.

 

It starts out pretty simply: three friends have horrible bosses. Horrrible enough to consider killing them, and while the trio's total ineptness makes for more comedy than murderous mayhem, you could feel the audience enjoying seeing bosses put under the microscope for a change. While few of us will ever actually have employers this outrageous, most of us probably have had a crappy supervisor or two and it creates an instant connection with the storyline. Haven't we all thought about blowing up at a complete d*#khead of a boss, yet kept quiet to save our skins and our paychecks?  That's what makes this an easy film to escape into despite the nasty plotline.

 

Business executive Jason Bateman's character is tortutred, harassed, and belittled by a brilliantly evil boss played by Kevin Spacy. Spacey basically reprises the cruelty of one of his breakout performances from the '90's in a classic little film called "Swimming with the Sharks".   The nice guy Dental Assistant  played to the limit by Charlie Day (we'll be seeing a LOT more from him soon, I believe) suffers through non-stop sexual assualt form his Dentist-Boss played deliciously and delightfully by Jennifer Anistion. She gives us not only a nympho, but breaks out of her usual good-girl slot as the deranged manipulative never-sexed-enough bully who pushes her employee to the point of blackmailing him. The ongoing joke that his buddies would LOVE to be chased relentlessly by someone who looks like Aniston is handled well. This is because Day brings believability to his playing a nice guy who just wants to be faithful to his sweet and innocent fiance.   Colin Farrel drops his leading role requirement, and transforms himself into as creepy a cokehead narcissist you could imagine, donning a fake comb-over wig and dressing like a color-blind lounge lizard. His character employs the salesman played by Saturday Night Live All-Star Jason Sudeikis. Sudeikis is assigned to play a good guy but sometimes is the least dependable of the trio, especially when he gets a chance to chase a pretty girl. But he gets into enough funny situations that we forgive him.

 

Jamie Foxx's small but sweet bit as the ex-con who guides the trio's disastrous efforts is a highlight of the film. Again, a great example of a a leading-role type actor taking a smaller job that must have been fun to play. Blue collar comedy king Ron White also has a brief appearance, and plays it serious for once. Even the now-infamous Old-Spice guy from those great commercials pops in as a law enforcement officer....but without using his sexy-cheezy baritone from the Old Spice character, you might have trouble convincing a female movie goer it is indeed him.

 

One of the smartest things the movie does is make fun of itself. It poinst out that it copies the "you kill my enemy, I'll kill yours" device that's been done before, and more than once. The script makes reference to the '80's version of this plotline (also done with humour) "Throw Mama From The Train", and goes even further to pay homage to the original film that incorportaed this plotline (with no humour at all, just sinister chills), the Hitchcock classic "Strangers on a Train." Once the movie lets you know that the movie-makers know they are copying and updating a well-worn storyline, there's nothing for the naysayers to pick on.

 

The film is kind of simplistic in it's neatly wrapped up "solution-style" ending, almost with the feel of sitcom resolution. But with a movie that is pure escapism and fun, never claiming to be based on plausibility, it works okay here.

 

Simple fun, but not written for the lowest common denominator yet not too serious, "Horrible Bosses" is worth seeing if you like smart & silly, sweet & sour kind of movies. And worth seeing just for the Jennifer Aniston and Colin Farrell role-reversals they do so well. Plus worth seeing just because you will have dreams of Jennifer afterward, probably whether you are male or female, gay or straight or anything in between. I never really understood her status as sex-symbol before....but I do now. Boy do I ever.

 

Warning for those who need it: be ready for raunchy comedy, some effective use of filth and profanity. If you can handle that, you can definitely enjoy this. We left smiling, so that tells me the movie did it's job.

 

Rating 3.75 out of 5

 

3 good things about "Horrible Bosses"

-The three lead buddy roles, all done well

-Jennifer Aniston

-Ummm....Jennifer Anistion

 

3 Bad things about this movie:

-Sudeikis' character actually made me a little angry in the final scenes, but the conclusion handles this so it evens out

-Spacey's character gets to be just a little bit much by the end of the film, but not enough to ruin it

-Not enough Jennifer Aniston