Horrible Bosses

Directed by Seth Gordon

(R)

***

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Horrible Bosses is “the best workplace comedy since Office Space,” said Jon Niccum in The Kansas City Star. Though not terrifically original, it pairs “a nifty premise” with a “killer cast” in a crude and frequently profane satire that should strike a chord with “the disenfranchised workforce of this economically lean era.” Three friends, led by Jason Bateman, become fed up with their harassing bosses—played by Kevin Spacey, Jennifer Aniston, and Colin Farrell—and decide that murder is their best option. The ridiculousness that ensues involves more than a touch of misogyny and homophobia, said A.O. Scott in The New York Times. Yet it’s all “frequently very funny” because the humor, while mean, is also pure: “It does not bother to cut its coarseness with a hypocritical dose of sweetness.” Much of the credit for the proceedings’ hilarity belongs to the stars, said Rex Reed in The New York Observer. As a creepy and coked-up corporate heir, an unrecognizable Farrell had me in stitches. Aniston, meanwhile, makes a foul-mouthed and sex-obsessed dentist the “funniest role of her career.”