Kurt is the only one of the three main characters to come in contact with the three targeted bosses. Kurt works for Bobby Pellit, has sex with Dr. Julia Harris (Kurt is never seen interacting with her--Julia just opens her front door to invite him in for sex) , and is held at gunpoint with Nick and Dale, by Dave Harken. Nick works for Harken; he never interacts with Pellit, but he does witness Harken murdering Pellit), and is never seen with Julia. Dale works for Julia, is held at gunpoint by Harken, but never interacts with Pellitt. Additionally, Harken gets angry with him for littering, and later Dale saves Harken's life without knowing it's Harken, when he almost dies because of a peanut allergy.
Horrible Bosses
For Nick, Kurt and Dale, the only thing that would make the daily grind more tolerable would be to grind their intolerable bosses into dust. Quitting is not an option, so, with the benefit of a few-too-many drinks and some dubious advice from a hustling ex-con, the three friends devise a convoluted and seemingly foolproof plan to rid themselves of their respective employers... permanently.
The story involves three horrible bosses and the three employees who vow to murder them. What makes the movie work is how truly horrible the bosses are, what pathetic victims the employees are and how bad the employees are at killing; they'd be fired in a second by Murder Inc. The movie causes particularly painful twinges at this moment in American history when employees are in a weak position and their bosses know it.
The bosses display an impressive array of vile behavior. In this well-cast movie, each one plays to the strengths of the actors portraying him. Consider Dave Harken (Kevin Spacey), a supercilious sadist who toys with his middle manager Nick (Jason Bateman). Few are better than Spacey at regarding others with contempt and humiliating them with pleasure. Many other actors, given his dialogue in this film, would seem unconvincing and over the top. Spacey demonstrates why he is getting praise right now in London for his work as Shakespeare's Richard III. You remember him. The king who murdered Henry VI and his son Edward, and later during the funeral boasted of his plans to marry Edward's widow, Lady Anne. The second boss we meet is Dr. Julia Harris (Jennifer Aniston), an erotomaniac dentist. Her target is Dale (Charlie Day), her dental assistant, who is engaged to be married, but so what? She wants him, and she will have him, indulging in blatant and aggressive sexual harassment. You know those little water picks dentists have? You don't want to know what she does with one after aiming it at Dale's netherlands.
Nick, Dale and Kurt meet after work on too many days to bitch and moan about their bosses, and one night, become inspired to murder them. This leads them into an unsavory bar in search of a hit man, and they meet a man named Jones (Jamie Foxx), even the initials of whose nickname don't belong in a family newspaper, qualifying as they do as a familiar adaptation of one of Carlin's seven words.
There is no shortage of pop culture depictions of horrible bosses. There is even a film with that title. But things could be about to get worse. What is to be made of the new bosses settling into workplaces across all sectors: the algorithm managers?
It centers around three Everydude pals -- Jason Sudeikis ("Saturday Night Live"), Charlie Day ("It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia") and the unfailingly charismatic Jason Bateman ("Juno, " "Arrested Development") -- who decide over drinks one night that their lives would be much easier without their cruel, sadistic bosses.
So they hatch a plan: They will kill their horrible, horrible bosses. Taking advice from a tattooed "murder consultant" played by Jamie Foxx (whose character's name is unprintable in a family newspaper), they plan three fatal, and seemingly unconnected, "accidents."
Though Jason Bateman, Charlie Day, and Jason Sudeikis starred as the movie's idiotic threesome, the bosses gave the film its comic bite. Big stars Jennifer Aniston, Colin Farrell, and Kevin Spacey cut loose as the nymphomaniac dentist, incompetent cokehead, and corporate sadist terrorizing the main characters, respectively.
Some bosses want to work with peers, equals, people they respect, people who can take the heat. It may actually be the case that your attempts to make it better by bowing down have actually been making it worse. That being said, if your manager is taking hazing cues from locker rooms or frat houses, take it to HR.
Jason Bateman, Charlie Day, Jason Sudeikis and Jamie Foxx are reprising their roles from the original Horrible Bosses, which followed a group of disgruntled employees who hatch a plan to kill their bosses.
Horrible BossesDirected bySeth GordonProduced byBrett RatnerJay SternScreenplay byMichael MarkowitzJohn Francis DaleyJonathan GoldsteinStory byMichael MarkowitzStarringJason BatemanCharlie DayJason SudeikisJennifer AnistonColin FarrellKevin SpaceyJamie FoxxMusic byChristopher LennertzCinematographyDavid HenningsEdited byPeter TeschnerProduction companyNew Line CinemaRat EntertainmentDistributed byWarner Bros. PicturesRelease dateJuly 8, 2011 (United States)Running time98 minutesCountryUnited StatesLanguageEnglishBox office209.6 millionSeriesNextHorrible Bosses 2Horrible Bosses is a 2011 American black comedy film directed by Seth Gordon, written by Michael Markowitz, John Francis Daley, and Jonathan Goldstein, based on a story by Markowitz. It stars Jason Bateman, Charlie Day, Jason Sudeikis, Jennifer Aniston, Colin Farrell, Kevin Spacey, and Jamie Foxx. The plot follows three friends, played by Bateman, Day, and Sudeikis, who decide to murder their respective overbearing, abusive bosses, portrayed by Spacey, Aniston, and Farrell.
Nick Hendricks and Dale Arbus are friends who despise their bosses. Nick works at a financial firm for the sadistic David Harken, who implies the possibility of a promotion for Nick for months, only to award it to himself. Dale is a dental assistant being sexually harassed by his boss, Dr. Julia Harris; she threatens to tell his fiancée Stacy that he had sex with her unless he actually has sex with her. Nick and Dale's accountant friend Kurt Buckman enjoys working for Jack Pellitt at a chemical company, but after Jack unexpectedly dies of a heart attack, the company is taken over by Jack's cocaine-addicted son Bobby, whose apathy and incompetence threaten the future of the company.
At night, over drinks, Kurt jokingly suggests that their lives would be happier if their bosses were no longer around. Initially hesitant, they eventually agree to kill their employers. In search of a hitman, the trio meet Dean "Motherfuckah" Jones, an ex-con who agrees to be their "murder consultant". Jones suggests that Dale, Kurt and Nick kill each other's bosses to hide their motive while making the deaths look like accidents.
Eventually, Nick, Kurt, and Dale come to an inescapable conclusion: the bosses must die. Being squeamish, they opt to try to hire a hit man, but, after a misfire with an Internet candidate (played by Mr. Fantastic, Ioan Gruffudd) who doesn't have the same understanding of classified ad "code words" as Dale, they take a more hands-on approach. At the worst bar in town, they meet Motherfucker Jones and, for a tidy $5000, he offers to be their "murder consultant." His sage advice: use a Strangers on a Train/Throw Momma from the Train template for the killings. Hey, if it's good enough for Hitchcock and DeVito, who's to argue with it? As the intrepid trio gets to work, they challenge the participants of Big Deal on Madonna Street and The Ladykillers for Hall of Fame criminal bumbling.
The ending of Horrible Bosses is weak, but that's often the case with dark-ish comedies that want a sunny wrap-up. Still, the production is so fun up to that point that it's easy to forgive the last act lapse. Horrible Bosses never reaches the level of crude mastery achieved by The Hangover, but it echoes the earlier comedy blockbuster by invoking male bonding among three mismatched leads and having one of them be more than a little off-kilter (although Charlie Day's physical appearance is considerably more tame than that of Zach Galifianakis). The movie is aptly named for, although this may ultimately be the story of the revenge of the underlings, the characters leaving the most lasting impact will be the bosses. 2ff7e9595c
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