Capsule/Summary ****
Horrible Bosses exploits an exceptional ensemble cast to offer up an amusing comedy that should entertain anyone not put-off by pervasive profanity and vulgarity for the sake of comedy. The supporting cast is filled with names arguably bigger than the leads, inclusive of Kevin Spacey, Colin Farrell, Jamie Foxx, and, in a hilarious performance that successfully makes the case to stop typecasting her in girl next door roles, Jennifer Aniston. The film is presented in theatrical and extended cuts on two separate blu-ray discs. The Blu-rays adequately render the not-so eye-popping digital cinematography and unimaginative sound mix. Extras consist of some very slight electronic press-kit style features and an interesting collection of deleted scenes.
Horrible Bosses
Directed By: Seth Gordon
Starring: Jason Bateman, Charlie Day, Jason Sudeikis, Jennifer Aniston, Colin Farrell, Kevin Spacey, Jaimie Foxx, Donald Sutherland, Julie Bowen
Studio: Warner/New Line
Year: 2011
Rated: R
Aspect Ratio: 2.4:1
Subtitles: English SDH, French, Spanish, Portuguese
Release Date: October 11, 2011
The Film ****
Horrible Bosses focuses on the dilemma of life-long friends Nick (Bateman), Dale (Day), and Kurt (Sudeikis) who find themselves simultaneously reaching a breaking point with their horrible bosses. Nick is passed over for a promotion and then humiliated by the spiteful egomaniac David Harken ("Spacey"). Dental assistant Dale's treatment by his boss, Dr. Julia Harris ("Aniston"), ranges from sexual harassment on good days to rape on bad ones. Kurt's dream job working for the benevolent Jack Pellit becomes a nightmare when Pellit dies unexpectedly and the company is taken over by his combover rocking D-bag of a son, Bobby (Farrell), who makes no secret of the fact that he plans use the company as an ATM to finance his cocaine and prostitute habits. After discussing their daydreams of killing their bosses, they convince each other that it would be three cases of justifiable homicide. With little experience as criminal masterminds, Nick, Dale, and Kurt embark on a series of misadventures as they try to formulate and execute a plan to rid the world of their life-ruining supervisors.
While Horrible Bosses may not be the most original of comedies, it demonstrates a keen knowledge of what is funny about films like 9 to 5, Ruthless People and other successful dark comedies that preceded it. Its primary asset is its cast, including a trio of protagonists in Bateman, Day, and Sudeikis that exhibit outstanding chemistry. They embody the right balance of impotent rage and amusing incompetence to provide their attempts at collaboratively plotting heinous acts the proper comic tone.
Helping to keep audiences empathetic to the plight of the three plotting protagonists is a trio of antagonists played by Spacey, Farrell, and Aniston who take wildly different approaches to embodying employers who merit attempted murder. Spacey is on familiar ground. David Harken is essentially the Buddy Ackerman character he memorably played in 1994's Swimming with Sharks modulated a few more degrees into the unlikeable. Colin Farrell absolutely revels in his embodiment of nepotism gone as wrong as wrong can be. While arguably his combover wig does half the work for him, he nonetheless amps up his portrayal nearly as far as it can go, teetering, and occasionally straying, over the top, but never in a less than entertaining way. Jennifer Aniston is perhaps the biggest revelation in the cast. She makes the most of a rare opportunity to play against type, and steals almost every scene in which she appears by ever so slightly underplaying her sexual predator boss, providing the perfect foil for Day's frustrated histrionics.
Rounding out the supporting cast are Jamie Foxx as a man hired as a "murder consultant" by the film's protagonists, Julie Bowen as Spacey's possibly errant wife, and Ioan Gruffudd as a "wetworks" specialist who does not live up to expectations. Foxx is a particular stand-out, with a character name that would more or less spoil a joke, so I will simply refer to him as "Dean" for the purposes of this review. He fits nicely in with the ensemble of Bateman, Day, and Sudeikis, hitting all of the right comic beats while making them alternately uncomfortable and perplexed.
Director Seth Gordon does a good job of keeping the patter sharp and the pacing efficient, resulting in a film that should offer plenty of laughs to viewers not overly sensitive to pervasive profanity and vulgarity for the sake of comedy.
Note: The film on Blu-ray is viewable either in its original theatrical cut or, on a separate disc, in an expanded cut that runs eight minutes longer. The extra material is spread throughout the film and consists mostly of short scene extensions. The closest to full-blown deleted scenes are two additional dialog sequences between Bateman, Day, and Sudeikis that are amusing, but not essential to move the plot forward. Most of the material appears to have been cut for time rather than content, although an extended explanation from the Kenny character played by P.J. Byrne of exactly what he is willing to do with his hands for money is significantly more graphic than the short version in the Theatrical Cut. Overall, I preferred the lean and no less mean theatrical cut.
The Video ***
The video comes courtesy of an AVC encoded 1080p presentation letterboxed to the film's original 2.4:1 theatrical aspect ratio. The film appears to be shot digitally, and many of the darker scenes, are filled with noisy digital video "grain". More brightly lit scenes can look quite nice, but with nearly half of the film taking place at night, the lighting for digital video shortcomings can be a distraction, especially on large projection displays.
The Audio ***
Audio comes courtesy of lossless DTS HD-MA 5.1 track that is actually more like a 3.0 track since the surrounds barely carry a whisper of information. The left and right stereo channels are generally reserved for music and sound effects, with all of the dialog firmly rooted in the center channel. Most importantly to the film's success, dialog is well recorded and clear with mumbled asides, shouts, and everything in between conveyed accurately and with proper weighting.
The Extras **½
When the disc is first played, the viewer is greeted with the following series of promos presented in AVC-encoded high definition video with Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo audio:
All of the proper extras accessible from the Special Features menu are presented in AVC encoded 1080p video with Dolby Digital 2.0 sound:
My Least Favorite Career (5:01) is a mildly amusing piece of fluff in which the film's director and cast reflect on their least favorite jobs and whether or not they in fact had experience with a horrible boss. On camera comments are offered by Director Seth Gordon, Jaimie Foxx ("Dean"), Julie Bowen ("Rhonda Harken"), Jason Bateman ("Nick"), Jennifer Aniston ("Dr. Julia Harris"), Colin Farrell ("Bobby Pellit"), Jason Sudeikis ("Kurt"), and Charlie Day ("Dale").
Surviving a Horrible Boss (6:29) is a slight featurette that is nonetheless the closest to a true behind the scenes feature that you will find on this disc. It focuses primarily on the trio of buddies at the center of the film and the actors who play them, but is also covers Director Seth Gordon's views on the film's tone and a behind the scenes look at the shooting of a high fall stunt. It concludes, as its title suggests, with some brief advice about how to survive a horrible boss. On camera comments are provided by Day, Sudeikis, Bateman, Gordon, and Stunt Coordinator Sean Graham.
Being Mean is So Much Fun (7:07) focuses on the trio of horrible bosses from the film and the actors who play them. Kevin Spacey even addresses the obvious parallels between the "David Harken" character he plays in this film and the "Buddy Ackerman" character he played in the 1994 film Swimming with Sharks. On-camera comments are offered by Farrell, Aniston, and Spacey.
Deleted Scenes (10:22 w/"Play All")
The Making of the Horrible Bosses Soundtrack (6:22) Looks at the "super-group" of famous rock musicians that was assembled by Composer Chris Lennertz to record the film's score. After an intro establishing their credentials playing with other artists and bands, it then features some of the musicians discussing their work in this film as well as other film and television projects. On camera comments are provided by Gordon, Lennertz, Keyboardist Money Mark (frequent collaborator with The Beastie Boys), Guitarist Mike McCready (of Pearl Jam), and bassist Stefan Lessard (of The Dave Matthews Band).
BD-Live Accesses the WB Portal. Offer the usual slow-loading access to more commercials. Other than the ability to host a screening, the only Horrible Bosses-related feature is an online version of the My Least Favorite Career featurette.
An SD-DVD Copy of the theatrical version of the film is included on a separate disc. It is a bare bones encoding of the film with Dolby Digital 5.1 sound and alternate language audio and subtitles in French and Spanish.
Packaging
The three discs are enclosed in a standard sized Blu-ray case with a double sided hinged tray allowing it to accomodate three discs: a Blu-ray of the Extended Cut of the film, a second Blu-ray with the Theatrical Cut of the film and all of the special features, and a SD DVD with the Theatrical Cut of the film. The case has die cut holes to reduce plastic use. There are two paper inserts in the hard case.
The hard case is in turn surrounded by a cardboard slipcover that reproduces the same art with additional text touting the DVD and Ultraviolet digital copy.
Horrible Bosses exploits an exceptional ensemble cast to offer up an amusing comedy that should entertain anyone not put-off by pervasive profanity and vulgarity for the sake of comedy. The supporting cast is filled with names arguably bigger than the leads, inclusive of Kevin Spacey, Colin Farrell, Jamie Foxx, and, in a hilarious performance that successfully makes the case to stop typecasting her in girl next door roles, Jennifer Aniston. The film is presented in theatrical and extended cuts on two separate blu-ray discs. The Blu-rays adequately render the not-so eye-popping digital cinematography and unimaginative sound mix. Extras consist of some very slight electronic press-kit style features and an interesting collection of deleted scenes.
Horrible Bosses
Directed By: Seth Gordon
Starring: Jason Bateman, Charlie Day, Jason Sudeikis, Jennifer Aniston, Colin Farrell, Kevin Spacey, Jaimie Foxx, Donald Sutherland, Julie Bowen
Studio: Warner/New Line
Year: 2011
Rated: R
Aspect Ratio: 2.4:1
Subtitles: English SDH, French, Spanish, Portuguese
Release Date: October 11, 2011
The Film ****
Horrible Bosses focuses on the dilemma of life-long friends Nick (Bateman), Dale (Day), and Kurt (Sudeikis) who find themselves simultaneously reaching a breaking point with their horrible bosses. Nick is passed over for a promotion and then humiliated by the spiteful egomaniac David Harken ("Spacey"). Dental assistant Dale's treatment by his boss, Dr. Julia Harris ("Aniston"), ranges from sexual harassment on good days to rape on bad ones. Kurt's dream job working for the benevolent Jack Pellit becomes a nightmare when Pellit dies unexpectedly and the company is taken over by his combover rocking D-bag of a son, Bobby (Farrell), who makes no secret of the fact that he plans use the company as an ATM to finance his cocaine and prostitute habits. After discussing their daydreams of killing their bosses, they convince each other that it would be three cases of justifiable homicide. With little experience as criminal masterminds, Nick, Dale, and Kurt embark on a series of misadventures as they try to formulate and execute a plan to rid the world of their life-ruining supervisors.
While Horrible Bosses may not be the most original of comedies, it demonstrates a keen knowledge of what is funny about films like 9 to 5, Ruthless People and other successful dark comedies that preceded it. Its primary asset is its cast, including a trio of protagonists in Bateman, Day, and Sudeikis that exhibit outstanding chemistry. They embody the right balance of impotent rage and amusing incompetence to provide their attempts at collaboratively plotting heinous acts the proper comic tone.
Helping to keep audiences empathetic to the plight of the three plotting protagonists is a trio of antagonists played by Spacey, Farrell, and Aniston who take wildly different approaches to embodying employers who merit attempted murder. Spacey is on familiar ground. David Harken is essentially the Buddy Ackerman character he memorably played in 1994's Swimming with Sharks modulated a few more degrees into the unlikeable. Colin Farrell absolutely revels in his embodiment of nepotism gone as wrong as wrong can be. While arguably his combover wig does half the work for him, he nonetheless amps up his portrayal nearly as far as it can go, teetering, and occasionally straying, over the top, but never in a less than entertaining way. Jennifer Aniston is perhaps the biggest revelation in the cast. She makes the most of a rare opportunity to play against type, and steals almost every scene in which she appears by ever so slightly underplaying her sexual predator boss, providing the perfect foil for Day's frustrated histrionics.
Rounding out the supporting cast are Jamie Foxx as a man hired as a "murder consultant" by the film's protagonists, Julie Bowen as Spacey's possibly errant wife, and Ioan Gruffudd as a "wetworks" specialist who does not live up to expectations. Foxx is a particular stand-out, with a character name that would more or less spoil a joke, so I will simply refer to him as "Dean" for the purposes of this review. He fits nicely in with the ensemble of Bateman, Day, and Sudeikis, hitting all of the right comic beats while making them alternately uncomfortable and perplexed.
Director Seth Gordon does a good job of keeping the patter sharp and the pacing efficient, resulting in a film that should offer plenty of laughs to viewers not overly sensitive to pervasive profanity and vulgarity for the sake of comedy.
Note: The film on Blu-ray is viewable either in its original theatrical cut or, on a separate disc, in an expanded cut that runs eight minutes longer. The extra material is spread throughout the film and consists mostly of short scene extensions. The closest to full-blown deleted scenes are two additional dialog sequences between Bateman, Day, and Sudeikis that are amusing, but not essential to move the plot forward. Most of the material appears to have been cut for time rather than content, although an extended explanation from the Kenny character played by P.J. Byrne of exactly what he is willing to do with his hands for money is significantly more graphic than the short version in the Theatrical Cut. Overall, I preferred the lean and no less mean theatrical cut.
The Video ***
The video comes courtesy of an AVC encoded 1080p presentation letterboxed to the film's original 2.4:1 theatrical aspect ratio. The film appears to be shot digitally, and many of the darker scenes, are filled with noisy digital video "grain". More brightly lit scenes can look quite nice, but with nearly half of the film taking place at night, the lighting for digital video shortcomings can be a distraction, especially on large projection displays.
The Audio ***
Audio comes courtesy of lossless DTS HD-MA 5.1 track that is actually more like a 3.0 track since the surrounds barely carry a whisper of information. The left and right stereo channels are generally reserved for music and sound effects, with all of the dialog firmly rooted in the center channel. Most importantly to the film's success, dialog is well recorded and clear with mumbled asides, shouts, and everything in between conveyed accurately and with proper weighting.
The Extras **½
When the disc is first played, the viewer is greeted with the following series of promos presented in AVC-encoded high definition video with Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo audio:
"Shameless" Complete First Season Blu-ray/DVD promo (1:45)
Warner Blu-ray 3D Promo (1:50)
A Very Harold and Kumar Christmas Theatrical Trailer (2:32)
All of the proper extras accessible from the Special Features menu are presented in AVC encoded 1080p video with Dolby Digital 2.0 sound:
My Least Favorite Career (5:01) is a mildly amusing piece of fluff in which the film's director and cast reflect on their least favorite jobs and whether or not they in fact had experience with a horrible boss. On camera comments are offered by Director Seth Gordon, Jaimie Foxx ("Dean"), Julie Bowen ("Rhonda Harken"), Jason Bateman ("Nick"), Jennifer Aniston ("Dr. Julia Harris"), Colin Farrell ("Bobby Pellit"), Jason Sudeikis ("Kurt"), and Charlie Day ("Dale").
Surviving a Horrible Boss (6:29) is a slight featurette that is nonetheless the closest to a true behind the scenes feature that you will find on this disc. It focuses primarily on the trio of buddies at the center of the film and the actors who play them, but is also covers Director Seth Gordon's views on the film's tone and a behind the scenes look at the shooting of a high fall stunt. It concludes, as its title suggests, with some brief advice about how to survive a horrible boss. On camera comments are provided by Day, Sudeikis, Bateman, Gordon, and Stunt Coordinator Sean Graham.
Being Mean is So Much Fun (7:07) focuses on the trio of horrible bosses from the film and the actors who play them. Kevin Spacey even addresses the obvious parallels between the "David Harken" character he plays in this film and the "Buddy Ackerman" character he played in the 1994 film Swimming with Sharks. On-camera comments are offered by Farrell, Aniston, and Spacey.
Deleted Scenes (10:22 w/"Play All")
An alternate opening sequence which starts off with some random unhappy working stiffs before transitioning into NIck's morning which eventually catches up to his entrance in the finished film.
Yet another alternate opening, this time starting with Nick's morning, and using considerably less voiceover narration.
Extended scene of Kurt flirting with a Fedex girl followed by a deleted conversation between Kurt and Jack Pellit (Sutherland), that sets up, but is also somewhat redundant with a confrontation later in the film between Kurt and Bobby.
An extended scene of Bobby insulting Kurt in front of Jack
A deleted graphic conclusion to Nick's fantasy kill
An extended scene of Nick, Kurt, and Dale leaving the store where they bought poison which then pans and tracks to reveal Bobby expressing health concerns to a disgusted pharmacist. This scene pays off a bit of business with a dust-buster earlier in the film.
Dale plays the audio recording of a sexual encounter between Kurt and Rhonda while riding in a car with Kurt and Nick.
The Making of the Horrible Bosses Soundtrack (6:22) Looks at the "super-group" of famous rock musicians that was assembled by Composer Chris Lennertz to record the film's score. After an intro establishing their credentials playing with other artists and bands, it then features some of the musicians discussing their work in this film as well as other film and television projects. On camera comments are provided by Gordon, Lennertz, Keyboardist Money Mark (frequent collaborator with The Beastie Boys), Guitarist Mike McCready (of Pearl Jam), and bassist Stefan Lessard (of The Dave Matthews Band).
BD-Live Accesses the WB Portal. Offer the usual slow-loading access to more commercials. Other than the ability to host a screening, the only Horrible Bosses-related feature is an online version of the My Least Favorite Career featurette.
An SD-DVD Copy of the theatrical version of the film is included on a separate disc. It is a bare bones encoding of the film with Dolby Digital 5.1 sound and alternate language audio and subtitles in French and Spanish.
Packaging
The three discs are enclosed in a standard sized Blu-ray case with a double sided hinged tray allowing it to accomodate three discs: a Blu-ray of the Extended Cut of the film, a second Blu-ray with the Theatrical Cut of the film and all of the special features, and a SD DVD with the Theatrical Cut of the film. The case has die cut holes to reduce plastic use. There are two paper inserts in the hard case.
The first contains information and the access code for an Ultraviolet Digital Copy of the theatrical version of the film. This allows users with a Flixster account to access a streaming version of the film on computers and certain tablets and mobile devices. It also allows viewers with Flixster Collections software to download a copy to their computer's hard drive. No other devices or software are compatible with the DRM of the downloadable version yet, but more are expected to become supported by the end of 2011.
The second insert is Warner's standard BD-Live Information Sheet
The hard case is in turn surrounded by a cardboard slipcover that reproduces the same art with additional text touting the DVD and Ultraviolet digital copy.
