The Boss - directed by Ben Falcone
Starring: Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Bell, Peter Dinklage, Kathy Bates, Ella Anderson, Cecily Strong, Kristen Schaal, Ben Falcone, Tyler Labine, Mary Sohn, Eva Peterson, Timothy Simons, Aleandra Newcomb
Screenplay: Ben Falcone, Steve Mallory, Melissa McCarthy
Music Score by: Christopher Lennertz
Cinematography: Julio Macat
Edited by: Craig Alpert
Running Time: 99 minutes
Rated: R13 - Language
A movie fan friend of mine has a film theory that we disagree on.
I have seen him reject movies and put blu-rays that had piqued his interest back on the shelf when his theory comes into play.
He is not interested in seeing movies directed by people he hasn't heard of and for whom it is their first time directing.
I see where he is coming from but there are two issues.
One - you should judge a movie on more than just the director and their experience or lack thereof.
Two - Quentin Tarantino.
With this friend's 'rule' applied no one would have gone to see "Reservoir Dogs" and we would have been robbed of not only a great cinema experience but the pleasure in seeing the opening shot fired in a career that has constantly scored bullseyes.
I mention this rule because as the credits rolled for "The Boss" today I noted that this was a real family affair with Melissa McCarthy's real life husband directing (not his first time!) and co-writing, McCarthy also co-writing, a host of familiar previous collaborators acting and comedy big names Will Ferrell and Adam McKay producing.
And it occurred to me very briefly that maybe a better rule is avoiding movies produced by husband and wife teams and their close associates.
(I note that Zack Snyder and Christopher Nolan would be affected by this rule so of course I won't even consider thinking about using it)
So coming to the point- No, I didn't like this movie much.
My expectations going into "The Boss" were low.
Melissa McCarthy seems to be very firmly into the phase of her comedy career that all seem destined to navigate.
It's the period after the first couple of hits kick start the career but the rush to get more movies in the pipe compromise the quality.
Some people never recover but even the ones who do like Jim Carrey still serve up disappointment after disappointment in the form of the likes of "Ace Venture: When Nature Calls", "Me, Myself and Irene", "The Majestic" and so on.
Melissa McCarthy is well on her way with the truly awful "The Heat", "Tammy" and "Identity Thief" - one of which was directed by her husband.
I like McCarthy and have ever since "The Gilmore Girls" but her name on a movies credits is more warning than recommendation for me at this point in time.
"Spy" did much to claw her reputation back for me and who knows maybe the upcoming "Ghostbusters" will prove the vocal detractors wrong (gasp.... women are in it!... shock, horror)
In the meantime though we have "The Boss" and it has done yet more damage in the interim to brand McCarthy in my eyes.
This is a simple tale of a self made woman who falls from grace and joins forces with a solo Mother and her daughter to try to rebuild her business.
The solo Mother is also her former, badly treated assistant who was never given a pay rise and is constantly verbally torn down for no apparent reason.
Of course it is really about a selfish, cold hearted woman learning the meaning of family.
That is all well and good - many very funny films of this kind use the same set up.
It's not the premise so much as the execution and whilst "The Internship", "Our Idiot Brother", "Trainwreck", "A Very Harold and Kumar Christmas" and "The Night Before" all utilise similar 'growing as people through adversity' plots they use them far better and are way, way funnier than "The Boss".
I may have laughed once during this movie.
It is a very unfunny flick.
The problems run deeper than that admittedly pretty damned major flaw too.
The big one is that the lead character played by McCarthy is awful to the core.
She has not one redeeming quality other than her drive to make money and that is very debatable as a positive.
Her character's arc is entirely unconvincing and I didn't buy it at all.
It is just McCarthy doing her now standard foul-mouthed shtick where she tears some hapless sap down with a barrage of threats usually amounting to identifying which object she will jam into what orifice.
Here it is a box of cookies in.... oh, never mind- doesn't matter.
And not much does in this movie.
It doesn't matter that Kristen Bell is raising a daughter on a low paid job and pulls a Dorothy Boyd and quits to assist McCarthy's Michelle Darnell in making her fortune afresh.
The riskiness of this is never explored. It's a bit like watching Friends on tv and constantly wondering how any of them afford their apartments and all of the activities that they do.
The walking out of a paying job subplot is used only on a superficial level and it wastes the considerable appeal of Bell in doing so.
Likewise Kristen Schaal ("Flight of the Conchords") is completely underused and doesn't generate a single chuckle through no fault of her own.
Kathy Bates does all that she can with the role she has- that of a mentor to Michelle who was predictably betrayed by her for no other reason than absolute greed.
Michelle is just that horrible and irredeemable a human being.
Worst of all is Peter Dinklage who plays a Samurai loving businessman with an effete assistant and a hard to figure previous sexual history with Michelle that neither can quite shake off.
This comes into play late in the piece during a heinously badly written scene involving Katanas and a clandestine mission to retrieve a document.
A diminutive businessman named Renault (I am sure the French car manufacturer has contacted lawyers) with freakish habits such as being fed milk in a champagne flute Dinklage's role should have been the absolute dead cert laugh raiser in this thing.
But alas no.... not funny at all.
There is also a set piece group fight scene that wants to be an Anchorman-esque over the top affair but is instead just a weak facsimile without the balls or age rating to go through with it.
With expectations as low as I had going into the cinema I would have thought this movie may have found it easier to entertain but I sat there bored and lacking anything resembling so much as a chuckle.
I was prepared to go through the predictable motions - and this movie is super, super predictable- in the hope that there would be laughs.
Even the frequent use of the word 'vagina', a nude scene of sorts and an extended discussion about Bell's breasts fail to entertain.
I am almost impressed by this 'achievement'!
This is flat, uninspired stuff that seems to have been hurriedly cobbled together off the back of the success of "Spy" as yet another vehicle for McCarthy on the assumption that people just love seeing her swear down people.
It is mean spirited and every single character is under-written.
It's forgettable dross about on the level of Adam Sandler's output of late.
All involved are capable of far, far better than this.
RATING: 62 / 100
CONCLUSION: Dire stuff devoid of laughs, fully formed characters or a compelling story.
Screenplay: Ben Falcone, Steve Mallory, Melissa McCarthy
Music Score by: Christopher Lennertz
Cinematography: Julio Macat
Edited by: Craig Alpert
Running Time: 99 minutes
Rated: R13 - Language
A movie fan friend of mine has a film theory that we disagree on.
I have seen him reject movies and put blu-rays that had piqued his interest back on the shelf when his theory comes into play.
He is not interested in seeing movies directed by people he hasn't heard of and for whom it is their first time directing.
I see where he is coming from but there are two issues.
One - you should judge a movie on more than just the director and their experience or lack thereof.
Two - Quentin Tarantino.
With this friend's 'rule' applied no one would have gone to see "Reservoir Dogs" and we would have been robbed of not only a great cinema experience but the pleasure in seeing the opening shot fired in a career that has constantly scored bullseyes.
I mention this rule because as the credits rolled for "The Boss" today I noted that this was a real family affair with Melissa McCarthy's real life husband directing (not his first time!) and co-writing, McCarthy also co-writing, a host of familiar previous collaborators acting and comedy big names Will Ferrell and Adam McKay producing.
And it occurred to me very briefly that maybe a better rule is avoiding movies produced by husband and wife teams and their close associates.
(I note that Zack Snyder and Christopher Nolan would be affected by this rule so of course I won't even consider thinking about using it)
So coming to the point- No, I didn't like this movie much.
 |
| Melissa McCarthy and Kristen Bell |
Melissa McCarthy seems to be very firmly into the phase of her comedy career that all seem destined to navigate.
It's the period after the first couple of hits kick start the career but the rush to get more movies in the pipe compromise the quality.
Some people never recover but even the ones who do like Jim Carrey still serve up disappointment after disappointment in the form of the likes of "Ace Venture: When Nature Calls", "Me, Myself and Irene", "The Majestic" and so on.
Melissa McCarthy is well on her way with the truly awful "The Heat", "Tammy" and "Identity Thief" - one of which was directed by her husband.
I like McCarthy and have ever since "The Gilmore Girls" but her name on a movies credits is more warning than recommendation for me at this point in time.
"Spy" did much to claw her reputation back for me and who knows maybe the upcoming "Ghostbusters" will prove the vocal detractors wrong (gasp.... women are in it!... shock, horror)
In the meantime though we have "The Boss" and it has done yet more damage in the interim to brand McCarthy in my eyes.
 |
| Ella Anderson as Rachel |
The solo Mother is also her former, badly treated assistant who was never given a pay rise and is constantly verbally torn down for no apparent reason.
Of course it is really about a selfish, cold hearted woman learning the meaning of family.
That is all well and good - many very funny films of this kind use the same set up.
It's not the premise so much as the execution and whilst "The Internship", "Our Idiot Brother", "Trainwreck", "A Very Harold and Kumar Christmas" and "The Night Before" all utilise similar 'growing as people through adversity' plots they use them far better and are way, way funnier than "The Boss".
I may have laughed once during this movie.
It is a very unfunny flick.
The problems run deeper than that admittedly pretty damned major flaw too.
The big one is that the lead character played by McCarthy is awful to the core.
She has not one redeeming quality other than her drive to make money and that is very debatable as a positive.
Her character's arc is entirely unconvincing and I didn't buy it at all.
It is just McCarthy doing her now standard foul-mouthed shtick where she tears some hapless sap down with a barrage of threats usually amounting to identifying which object she will jam into what orifice.
Here it is a box of cookies in.... oh, never mind- doesn't matter.
And not much does in this movie.
It doesn't matter that Kristen Bell is raising a daughter on a low paid job and pulls a Dorothy Boyd and quits to assist McCarthy's Michelle Darnell in making her fortune afresh.
The riskiness of this is never explored. It's a bit like watching Friends on tv and constantly wondering how any of them afford their apartments and all of the activities that they do.
The walking out of a paying job subplot is used only on a superficial level and it wastes the considerable appeal of Bell in doing so.
Likewise Kristen Schaal ("Flight of the Conchords") is completely underused and doesn't generate a single chuckle through no fault of her own.
Kathy Bates does all that she can with the role she has- that of a mentor to Michelle who was predictably betrayed by her for no other reason than absolute greed.
Michelle is just that horrible and irredeemable a human being.
Worst of all is Peter Dinklage who plays a Samurai loving businessman with an effete assistant and a hard to figure previous sexual history with Michelle that neither can quite shake off.
This comes into play late in the piece during a heinously badly written scene involving Katanas and a clandestine mission to retrieve a document.
A diminutive businessman named Renault (I am sure the French car manufacturer has contacted lawyers) with freakish habits such as being fed milk in a champagne flute Dinklage's role should have been the absolute dead cert laugh raiser in this thing.
But alas no.... not funny at all.
There is also a set piece group fight scene that wants to be an Anchorman-esque over the top affair but is instead just a weak facsimile without the balls or age rating to go through with it.
 |
| Peter Dinklage with McCarthy and writer-director-husband Ben Falcone |
I was prepared to go through the predictable motions - and this movie is super, super predictable- in the hope that there would be laughs.
Even the frequent use of the word 'vagina', a nude scene of sorts and an extended discussion about Bell's breasts fail to entertain.
I am almost impressed by this 'achievement'!
This is flat, uninspired stuff that seems to have been hurriedly cobbled together off the back of the success of "Spy" as yet another vehicle for McCarthy on the assumption that people just love seeing her swear down people.
It is mean spirited and every single character is under-written.
It's forgettable dross about on the level of Adam Sandler's output of late.
All involved are capable of far, far better than this.
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