#WHO IS THE BOSS MOVIE MOVIE#
Meanwhile, though Kathy Bates has a great character and funny opening scene the movie drops the ball big time on the character. On the negative side let’s just say that it would be so nice if modern comic star vehicles like this one relied less on the inherent funniness of their leads and wrote them actual jokes (see also Tina Fey & Amy Poehler movies) and some arguably homo/transphobic disses of Darnell’s enemies don’t land all that well.
The results are, shall we say, uneven so be in the right mood for it if you’re going. While The Boss may be basic and even slight in its construction and character work, everyone knows that plot is merely the jumpstart for the parade of physical (slapstick), verbal (usually profane), and visual (new wigs!) gags that McCarthy’s star vehicles thrive on. Darnell amusingly refers to it as her “totem animal” but it’s really more of a Handy Plot Symbol for the movie’s basic bitch trajectory: Business Woman Grows a New Big Business (with heart this time), Gains Soul in Process.
We knew that the Faux Phoenix from the opening would have to acquire meaning somehow. her assistant Claire’s couch… which gets it’s own not particularly funny joke.ĭarnell has to rebuild and she does this by founding “Darnell’s Darlings” a for profit rip-off of the Girl Scouts. As soon as the “world” we’ve described is constructed it’s torn down again as The Boss in question is convicted of insider trading (a good excuse for Martha Stewart jokes) and this once mighty woman hits rock bottom i.e. Michelle Darnell is not a specific career woman but Business Woman (all caps intended) and this is not a capitalist satire but a Comedy that happens to have a few business gags. This is broad comedy at its broadest in other words. The opening sequences are more of a hastily constructed joke platform than an immersion into a fully thought out world. May be back track a little? The phrase “world building” is too generously applied. She’s the underpaid and undervalued executive assistant Claire. We’re introduced to three of her colleagues / victims in the breakneck world-building of the movie’s kick-off: Peter Dinklage, of Game of Thrones fame, is the delightfully affected Renauld (“Ronald” to Darnell) her former lover and still rival the game Kathy Bates is Darnell’s look-alike mentor Ida Marquette and finally there’s Kristen Bell, playing the straight man (non-sexual orientation definition) to all these comic bananas. Melissa McCarthy threatens Annie Mumolo (the writer of Bridesmaids!) who plays one of her enemies in the movie Shortly after that insane entrance, which presents Darnell as a Susan Powter style self-help guru (for economics), the movie recasts her as a less specific cutthroat executive who buys and sells companies in the blink of an eye - and buys and sells out people with equally swift mercilessness. (In short: I was in the right mood to see this movie. It’s better to close your ears and laugh at the inanity of the spectacle than really contemplate what they’re saying and what their cults are cheering about that way lies nihilistic depression about the state of the world and we’re here to laugh, damnit, this being a Melissa McCarthy movie.
#WHO IS THE BOSS MOVIE TV#
This should be annoying but it comes as a weird relief in this relentlessly politicking season of pandering narcissistic windbags wearing saggy human costumes on TV every night. The sound mix is as uniformly deafening as that image is unsubtle so you can’t make out a single word of the rapping, mob chanting, pandemonium that follows. In the new comedy she’s Michelle Darnell, a mega-successful businesswoman (details are fuzzy on what kind) descending into a stadium on a giant faux phoenix that’s shooting off fireworks.
#WHO IS THE BOSS MOVIE PLUS#
Melissa McCarthy cuts an imposing figure in her first scene in The Boss and I’m not talking about her plus size physique though we’ll get there in a minute.
This review was originally published in Nathaniel's column at Towleroad