Nov 29, 2014
I’ve had some terrible bosses over the years: one was shipped off to two weeks of anger management training after throwing an enormously packed folder at my head in front of 50 coworkers, another was featured on a very special “Oprah” episode as one of the four meanest bosses in America, and a third disappeared on a payday without paying us, and still has the IRS tracking him for the misuse of a $60,000 federal business loan. So when the movie “Horrible Bosses” came out in 2011, I made sure to grab a ticket and wash my negative memories away with laughter. Starring Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis and Charlie Day as three working-man losers whose bosses drove them so crazy that they hatched a plan to kill their supervisors – attempting to avoid suspicion by having each one kill the boss of another man in the trio.Everything went comically wrong, because the three leads were completely unskilled at being hitmen and wound up having to hire a shady man with an unprintable nickname, played by Jamie Foxx, to help them finish the killings and still botched most of the plan. One boss died, while another (Kevin Spacey) wound up in prison, and a third (a sexually harassing dentist played by Jennifer Aniston) got off scot free. The movie was a smash hit, due to its ace comic acting and inventive twists – but while it was funny in a lot of places, it also suffered on a moral level from having way too many swear words and sex jokes. Now, three years later, the trio of Nick (Bateman), Kurt (Sudeikis) and Dale (Day) are trying to launch their own dream company: making and selling a new kind of showerhead that not only shoots out water, but also spews out liquid soap and shampoo to make showering a one-step process. After a ridiculously botched appearance on a Los Angeles morning-TV talk show, the guys receive an improbable order for 100,000 showerheads from a business tycoon named Bert Hanson (Christoph Waltz) and his son Rex (Chris Pine). But Hanson cancels the order after our heroes take out a $500,000 loan to set up a factory, setting them up to be forced into bankruptcy, at which point Bert plans to buy their company for pennies on the dollar at an auction. And so a new revenge plan begins: since they’re incompetent at killing people, they decide to simply kidnap Rex and hold him hostage for the money he owes them. Once again, they rope in Foxx’s criminal, and once again, it all goes haywire. On the one hand, the team making “HB2” must have felt the adage “if it’s not broke, don’t fix it,” because they maintain the original’s popular mix of bumbling criminals, outrageous twists and – sadly – way too much smutty humor. It’s a shame that the four writers behind this sequel feel the need to stoop so low into all manner of sexual innuendos, a few sight gags and a lot of swearing when the plot and performances alone would be hilarious enough to be a smash again. There is a place for dark humor, and for movies aimed at adults, but if the “HB2” makers would simply trust their own skills fully and genuinely respect their audience, they would likely find even greater success with a PG-13 version (a la 1987’s classic “Throw Momma From the Train”) that kept the kidnaping, doublecrosses and its fantastic car chase finale and ditched the smut. As it is, though, we’re left with a movie that’s too silly to inspire any viewer into actually committing any sins – even of thought – but is almost definite to offend seriously discerning members of the faithful.