|
THE BOSS Send This Review to a Friend
A particularly inane comedy, “The Boss” is clearly meant as a further vehicle for the antics of Melissa McCarthy, who is also co-writer and co-producer of the film directed by Ben Falcone, who is McCarthy’s husband. Falcone co-wrote the screenplay along with McCarthy and Steve Mallory. The star looks rather appealing, and shows her skill with slapstick comedy in the few outbursts of gags that work.
But “The Boss” is mostly over the top with its terminally silly screenplay, casting McCarthy as Michelle, an ego-driven charlatan who builds success upon dispensing advice to the gullible on how to get rich. Her financial empire crashes and she is imprisoned for insider trading.
Upon release, she has nowhere to go, but imposes herself on her former assistant Claire, nicely played by Kristen Bell, who is a single mom with a precocious young daughter, sprightly played by Ella Anderson. Leave it to writer McCarthy and company to include a gag in which the sofa bed on which she sleeps snaps shut and crashes her against a wall. Ha Ha.
The trajectory of the film requires Michelle to become a more of a human being than the exploiter she is. Along the way she enlists Girl Scouts to start a cookie-selling franchise that mushrooms until that runs into problems. There is a sub-plot involving Peter Dinklage as her business rival seeking revenge. It comes down to a pathetic swordfight between the two as the screenplay spirals into worse and worse ploys. Even die-hard McCarthy fans should have trouble swallowing this one.
Yes, there are laughs here and there, as when Michelle begins feeling and bouncing Claire’s breasts in the process of giving fashion advice, but they don’t begin to make up for enduring the brainless efforts at comedy mixed with heart. A Universal Pictures release. Reviewed April 8, 2016.
|