Adam, don’t read this post! Okay, guys, just let me know if anyone wants to go see Horrible Bosses with me; I’m hoping it’ll have some good tips. Good MURDER tips. The Horrible Bosses reviews are in, and in addition to being mostly positive, many of them are just bulging with the repulsive overuse of the word “naughty.†Writes Roger Ebert, “Horrible Bosses is funny and dirty in about that order,†adding that “[Kevin] Spacey is superb, but the surprise for many may be Jennifer Aniston. Her career has drifted into such shallows that it’s possible to forget how good she was in a film like The Good Girl (1999).†The Washington Post’s Michael Sullivan says, “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,†despite finding Jason Sudeikis’ fuck-crazy storyline somewhat off-game, saying “When it comes to some of the more snickering, boy’s club comedy, however, it does help to have a Y chromosome.†Collider’s Matt Goldberg explains, “While it lacks the warmth and maturity of Bridesmaids, it’s also a tighter, sharper narrative that keeps a laser-like focus on delivering non-stop jokes and never letting the plot stall. But more than its pacing, Horrible Bosses thrives because every actor is working at the top of their game.
However, plenty of critics found the movie deeply flawed, citing the movie’s raunchiness, flat female characters and/or mediocre dialogue as a disservice to a solid cast. The Hollywood Reporter’s Kirk Honeycutt writes, “The lameness of the gags and dialogue and the film’s frequent deep dives for the bottom at the expense of real comedy speak to desperation in Hollywood to figure out the audience for contemporary naughty comedy.†Argues HuffPo’s Marshall Fine, “So, yes, you’ll get some laughs from Horrible Bosses – and you may not think it’s horrible. But saying it’s not horrible is another way of saying that this movie is consistently disappointing.â€