Movie studios know that while many people are unemployed right now, those of us who have jobs still feel pretty stuck in what we’re doing. No one’s happy. No one feels hopeful about the future. Ergo, a movie about three dim men who, suffering under the tyranny of terrible management, decide the only way to fix things is to kill their bosses. Should we feel insulted?
Judging by the quality of this movie, maybe.
Director Seth Gordon has the best actors you could ask for in place. The three demeaned laborers — Jason Sudeikis, Jason Bateman and Charlie Day — do work well with what they’ve got. They gel as a group, even if the jokes themselves aren’t that funny.
The biggest problem here lies in the implausibility of what they’re doing. Would anyone really decide to kill a gorgeous boss (Jennifer Aniston) who is coming on to her subordinate (Day)? You can sense the screenwriters wrote and re-wrote the script to try to make sense of the plot, to make it seem like murder was the only answer. Along the way there are a few great laughs — especially with the presence of Jamie Foxx as Motherf—er Jones, a con artist who becomes the trio’s counselor in all things homicidal. But in the end, the premise still feels dead on arrival.
