I’ve sort of been on a hot streak of watching shitty old comedy movies. In 2023, my wife and I decided to watch as many movies as possible for us. We were shooting for one every day, but quickly realized that is too tall of an order. BUT! We have watched a ton of movies anyway this year. We have been kind of jumping from one streaming service to the next just watching random movies.

Last night, 2014’s Horrible Bosses 2 came through on our random movies list. We didn’t know if it was important, but we decided to watch 2011’s Horrible Bosses first. I never really had this movie on my radar, and we did not expect much… I sort of expected another Bad Mom’s, or Bad Grandpa, or something in that vein. What I got, was completely, totally unexpected.

Let me start with something that I feel needs to be addressed: Kevin Spacey is in this movie. I did not know this when we started watching. Now, knowing what that man is, I was like, “eh… do I really want to watch a Kevin Spacey movie?” Well… Let me tell you that the main plot is about killing him. So, I’m in. Plus, he actually totally gets outshined by Jason Bateman and CHARLIE DAY in every scene they are in together. Charlie Day steals the scene from Kevin Spacey… A rather impressive feat to be honest.

Now with that said, let’s talk about the movie. Horrible Bosses focuses on three friends that all have… well… horrible bosses. Jason Bateman has the aforementioned Kevin Spacey who is a complete and total dick with major insecurities (Spacey just got to play himself, how convenient). Jason Sudeikis has a lovely boss that dies and leaves his coked-up, nepo-baby in charge of the company (played by Colin Farrell and he is amazing). And last Charlie Day has a sex-craved, HR’s worst nightmare dentist played by Jennifer Aniston (she also absolutely kills it). After years of complaining about their bosses, Jason Bateman’s character finally hits his breaking point. The conversation slowly turns into plotting a murder for hire on all of their bosses. Which eventually turns into our three main characters deciding to drop the “for hire” part of the plan and just do it themselves. Things go horribly wrong (who would have guessed) and a lot of ridiculous scenarios and hilarious moments carry this comedy through to the end.

Now I know that is extremely vague, but I am purposely not talking too much about specificities in this movie because… It’s really really good. I was NOT expecting this to be honest. I thought it was going to be just another run-of-the-mill 2000’s comedy. But it is really clever and equally ridiculous. I laughed out loud numerous times and was surprised by multiple moments in this movie. Which feels like it doesn’t happen that often with this era of comedy. I usually feel like the 2000’s comedy movies all sort of follow the same formula that totally worked at that time. But Horrible Bosses totally shakes this up. I am going to say one thing that this movie does wonderfully, that I honestly feel like you don’t see that much: the main characters are all friends. They are all in the plot together. They are genuinely trying to help one another. And at every point along the way, they fuck each other over. Sometimes on purpose even. This is not unique. In fact, friends that fuck each other over is like 90% of comedy movies around this time. BUT! At no point do we have the point of the movie where they have the falling out that we always see. Even when everything goes horribly wrong, they stick together. It was really interesting to see that there was no low point for the group of friends. They never gave up on one another, they just realized they were fucked together. At one point the entire plan falls apart because Jason Sudeikis chooses to hook up with someone’s wife instead of carrying out his one and only duty. The other friends realize he’s an idiot, but they just try to run the plan twice once he gets back. It’s awesome.

Now one more thing that is amazing about this movie: Jason Bateman plays the straight man (like he always does), but he is ALSO an idiot. All three characters are super stupid and should never plan a murder plot. But they are. Jason Bateman’s character is trying to keep the other two grounded, but he is just as dumb. I loved this balance of having the standard straight-man character, but even the straight-man is just… wrong. He’s dumb too. It was great.

Also, there is female hyper-sexual aggression with a man trying to avoid her sexual advances, which never happens. And was sort of a fresh take to be totally honest.

Overall, I give Horrible Bosses a 3 out of 4. This movie completely, totally caught me by surprise. I thought it was going to be a dumb, run-of-the-mill comedy movie from the 2000’s. But it wasn’t. It was actually super clever with an actually interesting plot. I genuinely laughed out loud a couple times and really enjoyed it. I have never heard anyone even talk about this movie, but I think it’s totally worth watching. Plus, Kevin Spacey gets his comeuppance, which is awesome to see. I would strongly recommend checking this movie out. I was completely surprised.