Horrible Bosses Reviews
Top CriticGordon knows what works and what doesn't, pushing the leads' chummy chemistry to the fore while allowing the schematic and, frankly, highly unlikely murder plot to sink into the background.
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| Original Score: 3/5
The movie's main thrust is lowball wish fulfillment, which comes too cheaply.
A lot of low-stakes humor, occasionally brought off by a mostly ingratiating cast.
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| Original Score: C+
For something like Horrible Bosses to sparkle, the actors have to shine... and shine they do.
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| Original Score: 3/4
The coarseness wouldn't be so bad if at least the steady stream of obscenities were funny. But there is, after all, an art to talking dirty.
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| Original Score: D+
Horrible Bosses offers a reminder that adherence to formula may not be among the signal virtues of comedy, but--provided the jokes are funny--it's no great vice either.
As they say, the best laid plans go oft awry. So what transpires in a comedy about the worst-laid schemes? These guys don't seem built for premeditated murder but are perfectly capable of mayhem.
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| Original Score: 3/4
Horrible Bosses takes a dark premise -- three buddies band together to off their bosses -- and rings it for a solid, steady stream of laughs.
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| Original Score: B
The screenplay is a hit and miss; but there are some laughs.
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| Original Score: 2/5
What's right about Horrible Bosses is less easy to identify, but it comes down to something like esprit de corps.
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| Original Score: 3/4
The smartest thing about "Horrible Bosses" is that it both refuses to just clock in and waste time - and, at the same time, works extra hard to hold our attention.
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| Original Score: 3/4
Bits that could have courted actual darkness à la Very Bad Things-violence, venality, vindictive sex-simply register as dank shock-jock gags done with little courage, and even less conviction.
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| Original Score: 2/5
There's an underlying, nearly universal relatability to "Horrible Bosses" that can't be denied and that screenwriters Michael Markowitz, John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein use to great advantage.
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| Original Score: 2.5/4
It's over-the-top stuff, to be sure. But Bosses never crosses that line into the macabre. Don't call in sick to this shift.
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| Original Score: 3/4
Look at how crazy is the craziness we are doing for you. Isn't it crazy? the movie shouts, and the more it does, the less you'll laugh.
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| Original Score: 1/4
A jubilant, vulgar, and extremely funny farce.... Day, Sudeikis, and Bateman are a dream team of comic actors.
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| Original Score: B+
The talented cast and colorful vulgarities work overtime to cover for a lack of coherence, but they can only distract for so long.
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| Original Score: 4.5/10
Basically, "Horrible Bosses" is a handful of characters and a comic situation in search of something to do for 100 minutes.
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| Original Score: 2/4
Watching good actors let their hair down can be fun, but watching them let their standards down isn't.
It's been argued that movie comedies no longer have jokes. I would go one step further. The similarly titled (and similarly sloppy) Bad Teacher and Horrible Bosses barely even have stories.
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| Original Score: C
Here is a curveball for a comedy home-run. But at its best, Horrible Bosses is a blooper.
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| Original Score: 2/4
Here's a hit-and-miss farce that leaves you wishing it was funnier than it is. Why? Because it wussies out on a sharp premise. Because it wastes a killer cast that's ready to rock it.
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| Original Score: 2.5/4
If you're bright enough to count your change at the popcorn stand, you're too smart to see "Horrible Bosses."
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| Original Score: 1/4
What's the point of a black comedy that doesn't go for the kill?
Another frantic bad-boy comedy, with a good premise rendered depressingly inane by characters whose behavior barely makes sense.
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| Original Score: 1.5/4
Gordon, who made the terrific documentary "The King of Kong," is still a little wobbly when it comes to fiction. Fortunately, his outstanding cast steadies all but the most uneven moments.
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| Original Score: 3/5
Slow-witted, clumsy and almost pathologically reliant on crude name-calling for laughs ... Horrible Bosses represents the lowest end of the comedy spectrum.
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| Original Score: 1.5/4
Horrible Bosses is consistently funny, but it lacks the driving pace and frenetic energy that it so desperately needs.
Jason Bateman, Charlie Day, and Jason Sudeikis are pals who decide to knock off their miserable bosses, and their conspiracy leads in all sorts of unexpected directions in this crowd-pleasing, occasionally funny farce.
"Horrible Bosses" is funny and dirty in about that order.
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| Original Score: 3.5/4
The laughter is mean but also oddly pure: it expels shame and leaves you feeling dizzy, a little embarrassed and also exhilarated, kind of like the cocaine that two of the main characters consume by accident.
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| Original Score: 3/5
Cleverly structured, "Horrible Bosses" works in spite of its cruder, scrotum-centric instincts.
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| Original Score: 3/4
It may not be the summer's funniest comedy (that would be Bridesmaids), but it's safe to say it's the most killer one.
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| Original Score: 3/4
"Horrible Bosses" has no meaning or purpose whatever, but it does have Colin Farrell with a bad comb-over, Kevin Spacey acting really mean and Jennifer Aniston as a spray-tanned sex maniac, and that's going to have to do.
"Horrible Bosses" isn't horrible at all -- it's easy, raunchy fun in the manner of the first "Hangover" movie (and far better than the second).
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| Original Score: 3/4
There are few comedy pleasures better suited to the medium of movies than that of watching supposedly normal people behaving terribly. And if those transgressing characters are played by popular movie stars, so much the better.
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| Original Score: A-
Although the premise is far-fetched and the plot at times ridiculous, there's enough comedic firepower in Seth Gordon's film to carry you over the rough patches.
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| Original Score: 3.5/5
It's one of those revolting, raunch-fueled movies churned out in their sleep by the Farrelly brothers and Judd Apatow that I usually hate, but with real cleverness, off-center wit and edgy imagination.
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| Original Score: 3.5/4
It's a film that's wildly, brazenly stupid -- but also, you know, fun.
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| Original Score: 3/4
If you're like me, you won't entirely hate it ... but you may hate yourself in the morning.
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| Original Score: 3/5
This foul-mouthed effort coasts on its leads' strong three-way chemistry and crack timing.
Probably isn't horrible enough to excite younger viewers and will certainly not attract anyone else.
What passes for comedy here doesn't have a chance against a thesis so scary and sad.
