Sometimes I wonder how anyone actually writes a comedy like “Horrible Bosses.” Who has the thesaurus that helps find smutty replacements for perfectly normal words? Sometimes the unrealistically raunchy factor in a movie like this serves as a disconnect from the otherwise witty and creative screenplay at hand.
At times, “Horrible Bosses” seems dirty for the sake of achieving an R-rating. Despite being about three guys plotting a way to kill their boss, the gratuitous language and casual discussion of rape make the material mature. For instance, somehow I question the ability of the word “dickswath” to come up in conversation naturally, and it makes me realize how contrived the rest of their dialogue appears.
It all subtracts from an otherwise darkly clever revenge comedy. Nick, Dale and Kurt (Jason Bateman, Charlie Day and Jason Sudeikis) each have sadistic bosses controlling and ruining their lives. For Nick, he’s worked to the bone and denied a corner office promotion by his boss Dave Harken (Kevin Spacey). Kurt is left at the mercy of an uncaring coke addict Bobby Pellitt (Colin Farrell). And Dale is sexually harassed by his boss in the dentist office Dr. Julia Harris (Jennifer Aniston), although only Dale really sees her as a problem.
Initially, the film seemed repetitive and overstuffed as it explored three separate but equally one-dimensional characters. Nick is full of neuroses and sarcasm, Dale is the eccentric with a voice that sounds like he inhaled helium, and Kurt is the bro, the dude, the womanizer. By the time the second protagonist and evil boss showed up, it felt like one too many.
But before long the plots and characters join together wonderfully. Much of the trio’s back and forth banter as they team up to kill each other’s bosses (in a move they realize is oddly similar to both “Strangers on a Train” and “Throw Momma from the Train,” namely because it is) is more satisfying than the boss/employee confrontations.
Bateman has never really had a movie role to match his work on “Arrested Development” (or until the “AD” movie hopefully), but he proves here why he is a talentedly dry leading man. Sudeikis finds ways to be charming even when he’s committing adultery. And Day is the trio’s catalyst in allowing the dialogue exchange to flow with the speed and most importantly the clarity that I feel is missing (although I’m alone in this opinion) from his show “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.”
Although, favoring the leading men over the bosses denies us the inventively fresh characters devised by Aniston and Farrell. Both don personas so radically different from their typical screen characters that they seem virtually unrecognizable. Farrell is a wild card on camera, and it’s a shame he isn’t given more to do by the plot. And Aniston, whose career has led her from over-the-top zany and cute on “Friends” to a drab leading lady in bad romantic comedies, has never been sexier or funnier.
It’s a shame “Horrible Bosses” felt it had to meet a certain raunch quota, because it has the wit and performances to find a niche audience all on its own.
3 stars