Horrible Bosses 2 (2014)
Directed by Sean Anders
Dale, Kurt and Nick decide to start their own business but things don't go as planned because of a slick investor, prompting the trio to pull off a harebrained and misguided kidnapping scheme.
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What critics compared Horrible Bosses 2 to
Though “Horrible Bosses” offered an inspired concept (in turn inspired by “Strangers on a Train,” which it acknowledged in character dialogue), its individual scenes lasted too long, with hit-and-miss jokes.
Just as there was a nod to “Strangers on a Train” and its murder-swap plot last time, there’s a shout-out to “9 to 5” here — less of a stretch, as far as creative sophistication goes.
Following the misadventures of Nick (Jason Bateman), Kurt (Jason Sudeikis), and Dale (Charlie Day) in the misanthropic Horrible Bosses—a film in which, Strangers on a Train-style, the protagonists decide to kill each other’s employers—Nick, Kurt, and Dale are now the bosses.
In the first film, Nick, Dale and Kurt (Sudeikis) teamed up to murder one another's abusive supervisors, Strangers on a Train-style.
"Horrible Bosses 2" is monotonous and frequently tired, a mean-spirited farce without the go-for-broke punch of better similar films like 1998's fearless " Very Bad Things " or 2012's inventive " Seven Psychopaths ."
And it probably would have been a cheesy heartwarmer if the real events that inspired it hadn’t happened to Sean Anders, director and/or co-writer of films like Sex Drive , Hot Tub Time Machine , Horrible Bosses 2 , and Daddy’s Home .
Its director and co-writer, Sean Anders, has made a couple of movies I thought were reasonably funny (like the first Daddy’s Home ) and more I thought were not (like Horrible Bosses 2 ).
Director Sean Anders, generally the helmer of cinematic rotgut ( That’s My Boy , Horrible Bosses 2 ), decided to base this film on his own experiences, and it’s this personal touch that doubtless allows it to break free from the shackles of mediocrity.
They speak to the worst impulses of writer-director Sean Anders, whose tendency to go for broad slapstick and cheap gags has carried across films like the Daddy’s Home series and Horrible Bosses 2 .
Sean Anders previously wrote and directed films like Daddy’s Home and Horrible Bosses 2 , so you’d be forgiven for thinking that Instant Family would be a similar slice of shlocky farce.
Poised indelicately between shameless schmaltz and slappy slapstick, Instant Family may be blunt and messy, but it’s easily a career best for the filmmaker behind Sex Drive and Horrible Bosses 2 .