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The premise of Horrible Bosses—three mild-mannered dudes are driven to potential homicide by their titular tormenters—is nimble enough, so its success depends largely on the, uh, execution.
It helps that the entire cast in on top of their game.
There’s Jason Bateman, the soul of put-upon decency, as Nick, whose boss (Kevin Spacey) is an unrepetant jerk who makes him jump through hoops for a promotion before gleefully giving it to himself.
There’s Jason Sudeikis as good-guy horndog Kurt, who, after the death of his mentor, must deal with the boss’s coked-up womanizing son (Colin Farrell).
And there’s Charlie Day, in a starmaking performance, as cutie-pie neurotic Dale, whose own boss (Jennifer Aniston playing way against type), is a sociopath sex fiend who really puts “her ass” into sexual harassment.
I loved when our heroes met with their first would-be hit-man—they found him on Craig’s List, probably not a good idea—and Dale, who has watched far too many Law and Order episodes, solemnly introduced himself by saying, “I am the one they call Dale.”
Later, I laughed out loud when they brought a briefcase filled with 5 grand to yet another potential gun for hire (Jamie Foxx). They pop it open and—unlike the impressively neat stacks of cash in gangster films—there was just a small wad of bills floating around the middle of the case.
And I don’t want to tell you what the boys did with a giant pile of cocaine and a vacuum cleaner—but suffice it to say, somebody ends up having some serious dust bunnies in their nasal cavity.
A comic masterpiece it ain’t, but Horrible Bosses really did slay me. (Okay, done now.)
