Bosses, they're not great are they?

Once upon a time ago, I watched a film called Just my Luck, featuring a pre-mental Lindsey Lohan and the future Captain Kirk. The premise was that a lucky Lindsey loses her luck, and becomes like, so unlucky it’s unreal. What went wrong for her? If you’re so unlucky that it warrants a film, some bad shit must go down right? She got splashed by a puddle. By the end credits, that’s really the only bad thing that happened to her, no untimely death, no date rape, no chlamydia, nothing seriously unlucky, just getting splashed by a puddle.

It’s a light hearted comedy for kids, so of course you can’t just put date rape in the film, but nonetheless Just my Luck made me angry (what doesn’t?), its concept of unluckiness didn’t represent reality, anything actually unlucky would have been too hardcore for the film.

I was reminded of this “film” when watching the trailer for Horrible Bosses. A comedy where three guys decide to murder their bosses, who are like, so horrible and stuff it’s literally unbelievable. In a world where any form of murder is wrong, there can be no valid reason to kill someone, least not in a comedic manner.



Like Just my Luck’s diluted definition of unluckiness, Horrible Bosses’ definition of horrible does not translate to the real world. The film’s poster describes the three titular bosses as psycho, maneater, and tool. If he’s a psycho, just get him sectioned! But he’s not really a psycho, not in a Norman Bates murder you type of way, he’s just manipulative and a bit weird, don’t murder him! Because then you’re the psycho!

Maneater? Why would you want to kill a maneater? Especially when it’s Jennifer Aniston looking hotter than she has in years? Don’t kill her, fuck her! Horrible? She’s anything but horrible. And aren’t all bosses tools? Or dickheads as we’d call them over here. If he’s that much of a tool then just report him, don’t kill him. These aren't horrible bosses, I've worked with far worse, they should call the film Slightly Horrible Bosses, or Bosses, they're not great are they?

Maybe this could work as a dark comedy, but this has the same tone as Couple’s Retreat. Imagine someone getting murdered in The Break-up or Four Christmases, it just doesn’t fit. These films are supposed to have happy endings, how does that happen after the protagonists become crazed murderers? “Oh, work sure is fun now I haven’t got a horrible boss and I’m definitely not linked to the murd…I mean disappearance“. Or maybe they don’t murder them and it all works out in the end.

I’m sure the film is watchable in the way that all Jason Bateman films are, half heartedly. I loved Arrested Development, but Bateman sure does pick some shit to be in. These kinds of films are never terrible, but they’re never better than one watch either, sometimes they’re not even that good. How many more times can we sit through these films? They’re running out of ideas to the point that they’ve made a whimsical comedy about murder. There’s no whimsy in murder! What next? Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson will star in the balls out comedy of the century: The Date Rapists.