Monday 20 June 2016

Review: The Boss





The Boss
Cert: 15 / 15 mins / Dir. Ben Falcone / Trailer



Pity the poor editor*1 tasked with assembling a usable scene from hours and hours of Melissa McCarthy's frenzied ad-libbing. When you see an extended exchange full of awkward pauses, interspersed with her repeating the cast's lines back to them three times, but with added fuck-words, that was the best take. And it's a (by now) tried and tested formula which shows no signs of winding down at Universal

Starring everyone's favourite Bridesmaids scene-stealer, The Boss is the sassily-comic tale of a ruthlessly brash yet successful business-woman who finds herself cast out by her colleagues and contemporaries, turning to a former employee for friendship and support as she utilises the best of her old ways, while learning to be a new and better person at the same time! Yes, it's basically Melissa McCarthy starring in a slightly sub-par Jim Carrey film. Actually, no... starring in every slightly sub-par Jim Carrey film.

Remarkably inoffensive given the 15 certificate, there's yelling, swearing, and a series of unfeasible (yet wholly unsurprising) setpieces featuring a pitched melee between two gangs of girl-scouts. After that, the film pretty much writes itself. Which is just as well, as Mel's going to turn in the same performance as she does for all her other vehicle-movies, anyway.

The Boss wasn't quite as awful as I'd feared, but the film is so monumentally lazy that I'm amazed it managed to summon the energy get all the way to my local cinema*2.

McCarthy is better than this, I'm sure of it.


[ Number of comedy pratfalls by a larger-than-average person: five. Paul Blart got nuthin' to worry about... ]


So, watch this if you enjoyed?
Jim Carrey and Will Ferrell comedies.
(That's not meant to sound as facetious as it looks, I assure you)



Should you watch this in a cinema, though?
No.
Asda. £3. Tops
.


Does the film achieve what it sets out to do?
Not particularly.


Is this the best work of the cast or director?
Oi, Dinklage. First Pixels, now this? The currency of your Lannister goodwill is fucking spent, mate. Tread carefully....


Will I think less of you if we disagree about how good/bad this film is?
I will.


Yes, but is there a Wilhelm Scream in it?
There isn't.


Yes, but what's the Star Wars connection?
Level 2: As noted, this movie stars Peter Dinklage who's apparently in a thing called Game of Thrones along with Gwendoline 'Phasma' Christie and Max 'Tekka' Von Sydow (among several other performers from The Force Awakens).


And if I HAD to put a number on it…

*1 Paul Alpert, in this case. Poor, poor bastard...

*2 Although credit where it's due, that's more effort than the audience put in. I watched this Universal Studios A-lister comedy (admittedly now in its second full week of release) in a cinema with two other people. One of whom was incredibly drunk. Neither of whom laughed more than a handful of times.


DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

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