Cinema Review: Horrible Bosses

Three friends decide to murder their respective horrible bosses.

Lately there’s been this frustrating trend in American comedies, very cool, original ideas that failed in the execution, that didn’t bring a lot of laugh. This is really the case study of that trend.

The ides is wonderful, original and poignant. In this times of recession a comedy about our jobs, about our fear to lose time and about the not so very nice stuff that a lot of us need to do to get some money at the of the month is as topical as it can be. So bigger is the failure in delivery, the three writers of this comedy don’t manage to follow up the original plot point, not even slightly. Indeed this is not a comedy about three horrible bosses; this is mainly a comedy about three idiots trying to murder somebody.

Now nothing against that of course, is perfectly serviceable plot that gives us some laugh, but it completely misses the point and is so much weaker than the original pitch.

The beginning, where they establish the three protagonists and the three antagonists, is also dreadful, incredibly slow and devoid of anything funny. We just see how miserable they are and how the three bosses deserve to die. Is the set up for a payback that never materialize.

There is another very annoying trend in recent American comedies. The protagonists act in an incredibly stupid and contrived way just to get into dangerous and awkward situations that should generate funniness.

I think this trend was started by “the hangover” which did it in a way that was functional to the plot and didn’t make us watch while they did it. Also in this “Horrible Bosses” is a case study. Our heroes are literally idiots, they manage to accomplish something only inspector Clouseau style and therefore is impossible to relate to them. They are too much cringe worthy to be funny, I felt uncomfortable watching them doing mistake after mistake.

The main good thing in the movie is a Kevin Spacey in top form that has clearly a lot of fun playing the most horrible of the horrible bosses. Colin Farrel is less entertaining but for once he actually plays a character that is not a thinly disguised version of himself and this is certainly a good thing. Sadly Jennifer Aniston is not only saddled with the worst role, she is saddled with the hardest one to pull off and so her really small acting talent literally disappears leaving behind the husk of a performance.

What a waste of talent.