Review: Horrible Bosses 2

by Trevor Kirkendall

★

Sequels, sequels and more sequels. When will it end? It never will. Especially when movies that were relatively decent don’t necessarily require a second serving. I could watch Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy go back out for another story in a sequel to “The Heat,” but that’s looking less and less likely to happen. Never once did I think that I wanted to see more of Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis and Charlie Day’s characters from “Horrible Bosses” again, despite liking that movie. But here we are.

After escaping jail time from their antics in the first film, Nick (Bateman), Kurt (Sudeikis) and Dale (Day) have decided they want to be their own bosses. They’ve come up with a product fit for Skymall called the Shower Buddy, which automatically dispenses shampoo and soap onto your person in a effort to cut shower times down. But they need investors to make it happen.

Enter Burt Hanson (Christoph Waltz) and his son Rex (Chris Pine) who place an initial order for 100,000 units. The guys borrow money from a bank to make the order and finish it ahead of schedule. But then Burt cancels it, steals the idea and announces his intention to make their product himself under a different name. The guys are furious, so they cook up a plan to kidnap Rex and hold him ransom for the amount of money they’re going to owe the bank. The only variable they didn’t count on is that Rex wants to be kidnapped so he can take part in this dastardly plot and pocket some of his dad’s money too.

While the original “Horrible Bosses” was certainly enjoyable, the follow up falls into the typical traps that doom most Hollywood sequels. While some filmmakers have figured out how to avoid these issues – many sequels have been pretty decent over the past few years – others have not. Director Sean Anders is a filmmaker who has not, which is surprising given that he’s responsible for the scripts to “Hot Tub Time Machine” and “We’re the Millers,” two very respectable comedies. I guess working off of someone else’s material is much harder to do.

There are two things wrong with “Horrible Bosses 2” and both are cardinal sins when it comes to making a successful sequel. The first is repeating the previous installment’s plot points. Since the majority of the audience saw the first film and liked it enough to pay to see the sequel, the theory is that they’ll enjoy this one if it retains some similarities of the first. But that just shows lazy writing. If you played “Horrible Bosses” alongside “Horrible Bosses 2,” all the plot points would happen at the same time. This is the same aspect that doomed “The Hangover Part II.” These are the exact same movies we’ve seen before.

The second sin is an over embellishment of the character’s personalities. These writers have made everyone a ridiculous caricature of themselves. For example, Sudeikis’ Kurt showed the least amount of smarts in the original. He wasn’t an idiot, but would have been ranked third in the group of three on an intelligence-ranking list. In the sequel, he’s a straight up moron. The things he says in this film will induce many facepalms among the audience. I’m embarrassed for Sudeikis. Then there’s Day’s Dale, who couldn’t stop talking in the first film. Here, he never shuts up and rambles on about the most asinine things. He was so annoying I wanted to slap him.

You can tell these actors were here for a paycheck. All of them looked so uncomfortable doing this film, especially Bateman. I thought he was smarter than participating in a film for such an obvious cash grab. His successful directorial debut earlier this year – “Bad Words” – shows that he has the brains and the talent to accept better roles and work on better stories that this garbage. I guess everyone needs to pay the bills somehow, even Hollywood millionaires.

Furthermore, the presence of two-time Oscar winner Waltz gave this movie a bit of intrigue from the advertisements, but he’s completely misused in every aspect. He’s given one scene where the dialogue sounds like complete swindles of his lines from Tarantino films; it’s very out of place. Then he only appears in about three more scenes. That’s a horrible waste of talent.

While the first “Horrible Bosses” was enjoyable and relatively entertaining, it hardly deserved a sequel. I guess it’s a cheap enough concept so the risk of losing money is rather slim. Truthfully, though, the only person losing money here will be you when you shell out the funds to watch this abomination. I understand that it’s supposed to be mindless and humorous fun. It is indeed mindless, but humorous? Hardly. It’s that awkward laugh you make when a friend tells you a joke that’s not funny, but he’s had such a bad day already that you can’t help but give him a little morale boost by laughing back. This is a quick throwaway film. Seriously, I saw it two days ago and I’m already wracking my brain trying to remember exactly what happened in it. And by the time you read this, I will have already forgot I saw it entirely.

Review: Bad Words

by Trevor Kirkendall

★★★

“Bad Words” marks the feature film directorial debut of Jason Bateman. He’s no stranger to being behind the camera. He directed an episode of his cult television series “Arrested Development” for Fox. And before that, he directed three episodes of “The Hogan Family” when he was 18, making him the youngest ever director for the Director’s Guild of American at the time. So what took him so long to break into directing a feature film? I suppose he was waiting for the right script to come along. “Bad Words” was a very worthy script and he’s turned it into a very worthy first feature.

Guy Trilby (Jason Bateman) sure seems like a loser, but he might just be a genius. He’s also a ragging asshole, to put it nicely. Through a small loophole in the rulebook, Guy has worked his way into a children’s spelling bee. He dropped out of school in the eighth grade, and the contestants need to have not graduated from the eighth grade in order to participate. So Guy is in, much to the chagrin of all the parents and judges. And it’s not a piece of cake either. They’re not easy words; anyone who has seen the spelling bees on TV know they don’t take it easy on these kids. But since Guy is some sort of genius, he gets through with relative ease. All he needs is a media sponsor, which he has in Jenny Widgeon (Kathryn Hahn).

After winning a regional championship, Guy is off to the national Golden Quill Spelling Bee in Los Angeles. On his way out there, he meets one of the contestants, Chaitanya Chopra (Rohan Chand), a 10 year old bursting with energy and face that never frowns. Guy wants nothing to do with him, yet they end up on the same hotel floor.

Dr. Bernice Deagan (Allison Janney) oversees the Golden Quill and she hates the fact that Guy is here. She vows to get him out as soon as possible. The contest itself is the brainchild of Dr. Bowman (Philip Baker Hall) who is having it broadcast live on TV for the first time. Guy knows this, and its all part of diabolical little scheme. He may be a jerk and come across as a loser, but he’s very smart. He knows exactly what he’s doing. And he’s here for a purpose, one that he doesn’t share, to Jenny’s dismay.

Bateman has shown time and time again that he’s a great comedic actor (which he still doesn’t get a whole lot of credit for), but with “Bad Words” he proves himself as a very capable comedic director. The premise of this film, on the surface, seems very remedial and empty, but Bateman is able to breathe a lot of light into it, giving the film quite a bit of heart and depth.

The script comes from first timer Andrew Dodge, who has written what will surely be one of the year’s funniest movies. The whole story is simplistic and could have easily been told as a short film, but it works well in its extended length. Behind all the crude humor is a big-hearted narrative that resonates well. And while it may come across predictable, the final act is a riot with some unexpected happenings.

Bateman is solid as usual. He’s always seemed very comfortable in leading roles and I wish he’d accept more of those parts. Kathryn Hahn is strong in her role too. She’s been around for awhile in smaller roles and on TV shows, but I think she’s about to really break out into much bigger and more visible roles. I also liked seeing Philip Baker Hall in his role, as small as it was. Despite that, it’s probably one of his stronger performances in awhile.

But the real star of the film is young Rohan Chand. He steals every scene that he’s in. At first he might seem like he’s just going to be annoying nuisance of a secondary character, but he becomes a much larger part of the plot as we move along. He lonely, but that doesn’t seem to bother him. He’s a happy-go-lucky character and Chand plays it to near perfection. This movie is all his.

As the film’s director, Bateman has taken the relatively basic premise of “Bad Words” and made it into something much more meaningful. It doesn’t have an enormous impact emotionally, something that I thought it might achieve about halfway through, but it’s still genuinely heartfelt. Just because it’s a simple idea blended together with pervasive language and foul humor doesn’t mean it can’t be genuine. Bateman as a director has proven himself capable of making movies like that.