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Release date (India):
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November 28, 2014
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Director:
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Sean Anders
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Cast:
Language:
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Jason Bateman,
Charlie Day, Jason Sudeikis, Jennifer Aniston, Chris Pine, Kevin Spacey, Christoph
Waltz, Jamie Foxx
English
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This
review is not against sex comedies.
Now
that we’ve clarified that right at the start, let’s point out the real issue
with Horrible Bosses 2: lazy writing and
tired ‘jokes’. Take for example that early scene with two men in a shower
cubicle made of translucent material. One is on his knees fixing bathroom
equipment, but what we see outside in silhouette is the appearance of him
performing fellatio on the other guy. It’s a device as old as the Himalayas,
like shadow play between two characters suggesting intercourse of some sort when
in fact the persons involved are doing something thoroughly mundane. C’mon, even
Indra Kumar’s Grand Masti delivered a
similar cliché last year!
For
the most part, Horrible Bosses 2 feels
like it’s written by a particularly immature, unoriginal pre-teen. Arrested Development would have been a
good title for the story of that writer, except that that name is already taken
by the TV show starring Jason Bateman who is one of two primary reasons why I
opted to see this film in the first place. The other: Jennifer Aniston.
Bateman
played a loveable – and extremely sweet-looking – teenager in the 1980s
American teleserial The Hogan Family.
He stood out back then too for his nice-guy charm. Three decades later, that
aura is still intact, and to be fair, his character in this film gets the least
of the crass lines mouthed by the lead cast.
Jen
Aniston, of course, is Jen Aniston. She’s so charismatic and adorable that I
even watched the very drab Meet The Millers
in 2013, because she who played Rachel in Friends was that film’s heroine. It is tragic then to see her
helming possibly the most low-brow conversation of HB2’s many low-brow conversations, involving a detailed,
anatomically precise description of her sexual fantasies about men. If she doesn’t
watch out, she will soon become another Cameron Diaz, wasting her talent,
beauty and screen presence on ordinary or cheap comedies that don’t deserve
her. And why oh why is she getting her face stretched and pulled to be so unnaturally
unlined? Oh Rache, your loveliness lies in how that smile travels from your
lips to your eyes. You are risking losing that because some idiots out there equate
beauty with smooth skin.
The
story of HB2, for what it’s worth, is
about the three friends from HB1 –
Nick (Bateman), Kurt (Jason Sudeikis) and Dale (Charlie Day) – who decide to
start a new business. When millionaire Burt Hanson (Christoph Waltz) tries to
cheat them out of their venture, they plan to get back at him and
simultaneously save their new enterprise by kidnapping his son (Chris Pine).
The sad part of this film
is that it had potential. First, when the writing by Sean Anders and John
Morris is not being slothfully unimaginative, it’s funny in places. For
instance, when the lead trio try to ensure that they don’t lose the police who are chasing their car, the result is a hilarious
stretch which owes its hilarity not to abuse or distasteful cracks about adult
and child rape that we get elsewhere in the film, but to the effective
interspersing of stillness and frenzy. Second, just count the formidable number
of Oscar, Golden Globe, SAG, Emmy, BAFTA and Cannes awards on the bookshelves of
this cast! Why oh why did they agree to do this low-IQ film?
I know, I know, the
answer lies in the box-office potential of comedies of every variety, and the success
of Part 1. I confess I didn’t watch the first film – in spite of Bateman and
Aniston being in the cast – because of its listless title. However, it got
relatively good reviews and this time I thought: how bad can a poorly-named film
possibly be if it stars these two? As it turns out, very bad indeed. The
addition of the killingly talented Christoph Waltz to the acting rolls only
adds to the heartache in watching this bland, mindless, ordinary film.
Rating (out of five): *
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CBFC Rating (India):
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A
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Running time:
MPAA Rating (US):
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108 minutes
R (for
strong crude sexual content and language throughout)
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Release date in France:
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November 26, 2014
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Like with many comedy sequels, ‘Horrible Bosses 2’ doesn’t really do much new when compared to the first film.
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