The comedy Horrible Bosses features three helpless schmucks (played by Jason Bateman, Charlie Day and Jason Sudeikis) who meet over drinks to diss three of the worst bosses in film history. But the fact that the put-on employees’ plot to kill their bosses become funny is because the bosses are so over-the-top horrible.
Two of the actors playing bosses, Colin Farrell and Kevin Spacey, have played villains before, but for Friends star Jennifer Aniston, the role of sexual predator was new to her. She plays a dentist whose hilariously overt advances toward her assistant are the likely reason the film earned its R rating.
“I’ve never played a character so inexcusably raunchy and there was no way I could resist it — the dialogue and the situations are so outrageous and fun, I jumped at it immediately,” Aniston says, and adds, “I was bizarrely comfortable in these scenes.”
She joins Spacey, who plays a psycho boss whose sadistic demands drive his employee almost as crazy, and Farrell, a corrupt and incompetent egotist who will do anything to maintain his profligate lifestyle. “The three of us who play the bosses really back these three friends into a corner and I think audiences will completely understand why they’re driven to kill us,” Spacey says, noting that the comedy stems from the bosses’ bad behavior and the inept employees who “make the worst decisions ever.”
Statistics show that most workers genuinely like their bosses, but everyone who’s been in the workplace for a while has experienced, or heard, a job horror story — which is part of what makes Horrible Bosses a comedy for our time.
“Horrible Bosses” is now showing on Video On Demand. Check your cable system for availability.
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© 2011 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.