Horrible Bosses (2011)
Directed by Seth Gordon
For Nick, Kurt and Dale, the only thing that would make the daily grind more tolerable would be to grind their intolerable bosses into dust. Quitting is not an option, so, with the benefit of a few-too-many drinks and some dubious advice from a hustling ex-con, the three friends devise a convoluted and seemingly foolproof plan to rid themselves of their respective employers... permanently.
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His idea: To avoid establishing any motives, the boys should kill one another’s bosses, a plan that evokes references to (and jokes about) Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train.
The movie rightly makes a nod to Alfred Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train and even Throw Mama From a Train .
Heavily inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s “Strangers on a Train” and Danny DeVito’s “Throw Mama from the Train,” “Horrible Bosses” is silly, absurd and overly moronic, but that’s what makes it so appealing and fun.
With blunt references to Strangers on a Train, they decide to criss-cross murder the bosses, with help from Jamie Foxx as an ex-con who turns down the job as hitman but says, “I’m going to be your murder consultant.”
Now those of you who are big film fans will probably recognize that bit about having them kill each others’ bosses as a direct reference to Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train .
Those of you who are big film fans will probably recognize the bit about having the main characters kill each others’ bosses as a direct reference to Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train.
Day, from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, portrays a scratchy-voiced oddball with an embarrassing criminal record (an obvious nod to Zach Galifianakis’s weirdo role in The Hangover).
The Bigger Picture: We're still feeling the effect of The Hangover —not just in that beat-by-beat copycat sequel, but in the myriad recent, raunchy, R-rated comedies.
It’s the kind of ludicrous plan that you’d only find in the movies and seems clearly inspired by the men-behaving-badly genre reignited by the success of “The Hangover,” but it totally works thanks to one of the most talented ensembles of the year.
Like “The Hangover,” the genius of “Horrible Bosses” lies in the fact it takes the simplest of concepts and builds upon it with hilarious non-stop laughs.
It follows in the footsteps of the wildly successful The Hangover, blending a buddy flick, a simple premise, and undiluted dirty humour together to make for a solid laugh-out-loud comedy flick.
It's a story about three schlubby Everyman protagonists driven to consider murdering their respective bosses: in the hands of a proper comic misanthrope of the Wilder vein, somebody who can sympathise with his characters while refusing to cut them even a little bit of slack , this might have been an exquisitely nasty and hilarious black comedy, but that's not at all where director Seth Gordon and the team of three sceenwriters take the material: instead, it's basically just The Hangover with a healthy sense of class resentment in place of lifestyle porn and economic desperation subbing for hopped-up sexuality - these are both positive developments, if you asked me - that makes the mistake of letting its heroes off the hook much too readily, while having absolutely no idea what to do with a really swell concept once it gets past the exposition stage.
The premise on paper seems simple enough but like Collin Higgin’s Nine to Five , a better film that you’re sometimes reminded of, care has been taken to circumvent obvious advances in the story.
An exercise in the fashionable Hollywood in-your-face lewdness associated with the envelope-pushing Judd Apatow, this business world comedy is a switch on Nine to Five , the 1980 feminist movie in which Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton kidnap their exploitative chauvinist boss.
Think of 2011's "Horrible Bosses" as "Nine to Five" meets "The Hangover."
"Horrible Bosses" follows the precedent set by such earlier crime-gone-awry comedies as "Ruthless People" (1986), "Throw Momma from the Train" (1987) and "Bottle Rocket" (1996) with gut-busting gusto.
The movie also juggles a handful of established comedic subgenres extremely well, wisely letting the currently lucrative spillover from The Hangover take center stage though better and more timeless films like Swimming with Sharks , The Ref , and Ruthless People also share an indirect lineage.
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"Horrible Bosses" follows the precedent set by such earlier crime-gone-awry comedies as "Ruthless People" (1986), "Throw Momma from the Train" (1987) and "Bottle Rocket" (1996) with gut-busting gusto.
What hurts is that it never takes off into the wild ozone (like, say, Throw Momma from the Train or The War of the Roses � Danny DeVito really should�ve directed this), nor is it grounded in much reality � it�s a middle-of-the-road farce, too timid to risk losing the audience by making the working lads cold-blooded either in murder or manipulation.
But soon they’re hiring a “murder consultant” (Jamie Foxx) and name-checking Alfred Hitchcock’s “Strangers on a Train” (1951) and the Danny DeVito movie “Throw Momma from the Train” (1987) as they plot the demise of their employers.
Like Danny DeVito’s soft but likable satire Throw Momma From the Train—which the movie is generous enough to name-check— Horrible Bosses doesn’t sink its teeth very deeply into its Hitchcockian premise.
His suggestion: Emulate Alfred Hitchcocks Strangers on a Train (or, as one character amusingly notes, Danny DeVitos Throw Momma from the Train) by having each fellow bump off anothers boss, thereby reducing the risk of getting caught.
And Day — whose lines tend to come out in a breathy, spacy squeak — fills in the gaps with his doofy malapropisms: When one of the guys mentions Strangers on a Train, Day thinks he’s talking about “that Danny De Vito movie,” Throw Momma from the Train.
Until the somewhat deflated ending, the film bounces along wittily enough, with clever nods to Herbie the Love Bug, Jodie Foster, and Good Will Hunting, as well as what is doubtless the best punch line ever occasioned by Snow Falling on Cedars.
The use of 1999's " Snow Falling on Cedars " as the payoff to one ongoing story point is an unexpected comic high point."Horrible…
The combination of unapologetic vulgarity and semi-obscure pop culture references pretty much sums up the level of wit at work -- think the gang in the early bar scene in " Knocked Up ," only more bitter and not quite as smart -- and again, not good.
It’s difficult to watch Horrible Bosses without thinking that the filmmakers are looking for increasingly outrageous ways to walk through the door thrown open by raunch masters such as Judd Apatow (The 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up) and Todd Phillips (the Hangover movies).
"Horrible Bosses" follows the precedent set by such earlier crime-gone-awry comedies as "Ruthless People" (1986), "Throw Momma from the Train" (1987) and "Bottle Rocket" (1996) with gut-busting gusto.
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There’s a gag borrowed from High Fidelity, and another from Annie Hall.
Sudeikis is the smoothie and lady's man, while Dale is, like his cartoon namesake, a hyperactive chipmunk who works overtime on the old "Annie Hall" cocaine joke.
It’s virtually impossible not be reminded of 1994’s Swimming with Sharks , a darker, meaner version of the same story.
For Nick, it's getting passed over for a promotion by his blowhard tyrant of a boss, played by Kevin Spacey, who channels the sadistic movie mogul he played in 1994's Swimming with Sharks, only with less complexity and nuance.
The bosses, meanwhile, provide the movie’s glistening star power: Kevin Spacey reprises his conniving, pinstriped sociopath from Swimming With Sharks; Jennifer Aniston has a blast brandishing dental tools and delivering lines about “fingering” herself to episodes of Gossip Girl; an unrecognizable Colin Farrell turns his newly dead father’s formally virginal business into an emporium for hookers and Scarface-like cocaine binges.
Jason Bateman is, as always, the picture of quiet desperation as corporate drone Nick whose life is made hell by Kevin Spacey as Mr Harken, a bully reminiscent of his studio exec in 1994 satire Swimming With Sharks .
Spacey is always a treat to watch, of course, even when he's channeling the blazingly hostile boss he played in Swimming with Sharks .
In place of genuine moviemaking danger there’s Colin Farrell bombing around with a pronounced comb over (a shoddy make-up appliance), Jennifer Aniston trying on an ill-fitting potty mouth, and Kevin Spacey reviving his Buddy Ackerman character from “Swimming with Sharks.”