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Horrible Bosses (R16, 94mins) Directed by Seth Gordon ***½
Nick Hendricks (Jason Bateman) is gunning for senior vice-president of sales at Comnidyne Financial Management and all his colleagues expect he’ll be the man picked for the vacancy.
Everyone, that is, except his boss, Dave Harken (Kevin Spacey).
Life is even worse for Nick’s friend Dale (Charlie Day). The dental assistant’s dream of finally becoming a husband is being jeopardised by his sexual predator of a superior – Julia Harris (Jennifer Aniston).
Unlike his buddies, Kurt Buckman (Jason Sudeikis) loves both his job and chief (Donald Sutherland). But when the old man has a heart attack, his replacement is his demanding, drug-addled son Bobby (Colin Farrell), who wants to fire any overweight staff.
Desperate to find a way out of their respective nightmares, the trio hit upon an idea to murder each other’s bosses.
Supplied
Jason Bateman and Kevin Spacey face off in Horrible Bosses.
This 2009 tale is a pitch-black adult comedy with lashings of violence, sexual innuendo and salty language – and more white powder than at a confectioner’s.
Director Seth Gordon (The King of Kong, Four Holidays) mines the premise for plenty of dark laughs and gets the best out of his eclectic cast. However, the film eventually morphs into a chase movie, attempting to fill in the increasing gaps between laughs with pratfalls and danger at every turn.
Which is a shame, because the central trio are excellent, while Aniston and Farrell appear to be having a ball by vamping and ramping up their crazy characters to maximum volume. Solidly entertaining, Horrible Bosses is the kind of flick Hollywood rarely makes well, or even puts out in cinemas, these days.
Horrible Bosses is available to stream on Neon from August 29.
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