Horrible Bosses 2

Worst (or best?) episode of "Friends" ever

Grade: C –

Director: Sean Anders

Starring: Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis, Charlie Day, Chris Pine, Christoph Waltz, Jennifer Aniston, Jamie Foxx and Kevin Spacey

MPAA Rating: R

Running Time: 1 hr. 48 min.

There’s a not-so-fine line between pushing the comedic envelope and blind bad taste. When Jennifer Aniston’s character in Horrible Bosses 2 graphically fantasizes about two 14-year-old boys having sex at camp, it’s a wince-inducing moment that’s hard to walk back.

Perhaps the pubescent parable by Aniston’s sex-obsessed dentist Julia Harris could have been shoved out of our synapses if it took place in isolation. However, Horrible Bosses 2 is a film that opens with an onanistic sight gag and the three lead characters’ names—Nick, Kurt and Dale—being unwittingly conflated into a racial slur, and it closes with Harris expressing her predilection for somnophilia.

In-between are repeated rape references and racial stereotypes. But every sidelong N-word is OK since there’s always a character of color around to chastise it, right? And when a rich prick demeans his Asian housekeeper, the film’s idea of balance is when she secretly soils the boss’ toothbrush with her backside.

The fault lies squarely with writer-director Sean Anders, brought in to replace Seth Gordon, who helmed the surprisingly successful original about three put-upon pals who plot to kill their overbearing bosses. Anders’ most recent directorial credit was the reprehensible Adam Sandler vehicle That’s My Boy, and he was last seen helping sully the screenplays for Dumb and Dumber To, We’re the Millers and Mr. Popper’s Penguins.

Even the film’s title is now a misnomer. Nick (Jason Bateman), Kurt (Jason Sudeikis) and Dale (Charlie Day) have escaped the clutches of their day-job drudgery to launch a start-up manufacturing an invention named “The Shower Buddy.” But after sinking all their fortunes into churning out thousands of their ablution aids, Bert Hanson (Christoph Waltz), the product’s exclusive millionaire retailer, reneges on their deal in order to acquire the trio’s invention on the cheap once their business goes belly-up.

To save their shirts and company, Nick, Kurt and Dale decide to kidnap Rex (Chris Pine), Hanson’s preening son, and hold him for ransom. The half-baked plot becomes more hairbrained once Rex blackmails the guys into letting him join the scheme in exchange for a handsome share of the money.

The snappy comic chemistry that made the first Horrible Bosses a hit is still there: Sudeikis the horndog oaf, Bateman the slow-burn straight man, and Day the manic mouthmouth. Pine acquits himself well even though his spoiled brat with daddy’s issues seems to be operating on another narrative plain. But Waltz was actually funnier in Django Unchained, and the presence of Jonathan Banks as a police detective only reminded me how I hated the way Mike died in Breaking Bad.

Indeed, it’s telling that anytime the film needs a shot in the arm, it recalls the supporting cast from the first film. Kevin Spacey has a grand ‘ole profane time as a now-jailed Dave Harden, but it’s Jamie Foxx who steals every scene reprising “MF” Jones, a hardened street hood who harbors hopes of opening a Pinkberry franchise.

Unfortunately, Horrible Bosses 2’s sporadic chuckles never congeal into a memorable whole. And with its barrage of gay gags and other egregious overtones, that’s probably for the best.

21

I just want to play some cards, so would
you please stop calling me "The One"?

Grade: C +
Director: Robert Luketic
Starring: Jim Sturgess, Kevin Spacey, Kate Bosworth, and Laurence Fishburne
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Running Time: 2 hours, 3 minutes

I bet that a faithful film adaptation of the true-story behind Ben Mezrich’s best-selling book Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions would make an interesting, entertaining movie. I would also bet the house that movie isn’t 21, a so-called “fact-based” interpretation of Mezrich’s non-fictioner that is as slick and superficial as its Las Vegas backdrop.

Presuming that its remarkable premise will suffice, the film eschews such pesky nuisances as character development and narrative cohesion. The college students training in secret to count cards and win big at blackjack, together with their instructor and sensei Micky Rosa (Kevin Spacey, skilled but always one beat away from slipping into a Juilliard acting exercise, or a Vegas lounge act), appear without any explanation of how or when their racket began, how they slip away from campus (and class) unnoticed for long-weekend sojourns to Vegas, or – and here is a novel concept – any backstory about the kids themselves. Counting cards is hard enough, but good luck figuring out how Micky once matriculated from a two-bit card-hustler into a tenured M.I.T. prof.

We become slightly more familiar with Ben Campbell (Jim Sturgess), a mathematics wiz who harbors dreams of enrolling in Harvard Medical School after graduation, so long as he can save enough money for tuition off his salesman job at a local men’s wear store. Enter the dual enticements of Micky’s promise of riches and Ben’s goo-goo eyes for fellow card-shark Jill Taylor (Kate Bosworth). Soon, Ben and Co. are redeye-flying and limo-riding down the Strip, gaming the gaming houses under the suspicious eye of a loss prevention agent played by Laurence Fishburne.

So enamored is director Robert Luketic with the allure of Sin City that the endless slow-motion, neon-bathed montages tracing the students’ casino and club hopping plays more like a promotional video for the Las Vegas tourism office. Indeed, the true cautionary lesson here is to not entrust one’s film in the hands of a director whose last three efforts were Monster-in-Law, Win A Date With Tad Hamilton!, and Legally Blonde, or, for that matter, a co-screenwriter – Peter Steinfeld – whose last three credits are Be Cool, Analyze That, and Drowning Mona.

Ben’s intrusive voiceover narration, used to mount just part of the leaden script, only reminds you of a far superior college-set gambling film, John Dahl’s Rounders, a character-driven morality play that successfully incorporated a respect for the art of the game. 21 never competently marries the two, glossing over the machinations of the students’ scheme while ultimately relying on a series of false, increasingly preposterous endings, including a plot twist that is as predictable as it is implausible.

Blessed with a bounty of potential, 21 takes its winning hand and goes bust.

Neil Morris