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STARRING: Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Bell, Kathy Bates, Peter Dinklage
DIRECTOR: Ben Falcone
Genre: Comedy
Rating: 15+
99 mins
Melissa McCarthy is the definition of a marmite actress. If you’re not already a fan, The Boss is highly unlikely to change your mind, but there are some hard laughs to be had and people who love her work will lap it up.
She’s the best part about this movie and comes out with some cracking expletive-fuelled rants, but the film’s premise and some of its set-pieces are too ridiculous to elevate the movie into the upper echelons of comedy cinema.
The basic foundation for the story is pretty simple. McCarthy plays hard-hearted and iron-willed businesswoman Michelle Darnell, who gets locked up for insider trading. When she gets out, she finds that her life is worthless without her possessions, wealth and status. She’s lost everything, and the only person she can turn to is her former employee, Claire (Bell). While staying with Claire and her young daughter, she comes up with a new business idea – a Brownie empire.
Together they start the new business venture but among the obstacles in the way are Darnell’s personal issues and the multitude of people she screwed over in the past. She may be trying to rebrand herself as America’s latest sweetheart, but there are many not so quick to forgive and forget. Chief among these is her broken-hearted ex and former business rival Renault (good ol’ Tyrion Lannister himself, Peter Dinklage).
The Boss sees McCarthy team up with her director husband, Ben Falcone, for the second time. The first effort was Tammy, a film that was clearly far funnier on paper than it sadly ended up being on screen. Luckily, this time it feels much more natural, works far better and, although the comedy can lull at times, when it’s funny, it’s really funny.
McCarthy delivers in spades, and some of her withering put-downs and sweary rants are genius. Films often employ profanity just to appear cool and to cover deficiencies in the script, but here it really works. It’s littered throughout, but it’s creative and McCarthy delivers filth like no one else in the business and it lands perfectly. She really is a potty-mouthed Picasso!
Many of the scenes are solid and laugh-out-loud funny, such as a deftly-handled street fight, a shower scene and an 80s throwback.
Sadly, the majority of the plot is implausible. I know films like this push the boundaries of believability (that’s the nature of slapstick), but consider it for a moment: the entire film relies on Darnell starting again from the very bottom as an unknown with nothing.
Apparently, a monumentally-famous woman who was all over TV, radio and billboards can be completely forgotten by the American populace in the space of a short prison sentence. It’s like Alan Sugar being locked up for tax fraud (and all the scandalous publicity that would bring in the media) and being released a couple of years later to flog Argos catalogues door-to-door without being recognised.
Another negative is the severely-underplayed supporting cast. It seems McCarthy hogged too much of the spotlight, as Bell and Dinklage in particular get shunned. The former is bland and gets too few lines to make her mark, while the latter seems to be appearing in a different movie altogether.
Overall, this is one that McCarthy’s fans will enjoy from start to finish, while her detractors will hate it. For the uninitiated to her acting credentials, this is a comedy with some very bright spots but all too often suffers thanks to implausibility in the plot and an undercooked supporting cast.
Showing in Novo Cinemas, Cineco, Seef II , Dana Cineplex
Rating: 3/5
