Posted on 04/08/2016 5:55:20 PM PDT by Kaslin
The new comedy The Boss begins emphatically as a showcase for its star Melissa McCarthy. After a few brief scenes showing a younger version of her character being rejected time and again from foster homes, it’s time for McCarthy’s show to begin. McCarthy emerges onstage with a rock star-type following to great fanfare as Michelle Darnel, who we’re told is the 47th richest woman in America. She’s standing in front of a crowd of hundreds who look to her as a business icon who is spreading her story of success to her legions of fans.
McCarthy embraces the role exuberantly but unfortunately, the script is so crass, grotesque and vulgar that her talent gets lost in the morass of this motion picture.
Much of the movie focuses on Darnell after her fall from grace. The successful businesswoman mistakenly engages in insider trading, leading her to prison and her company into the hands of a business rival named Renault (Peter Dinklage). When Darnel leaves prison — clearly unchastened by the experience — she seeks refuge at the home of her former assistant Claire (Kristen Bell).
There, she finds out that no one really liked her abrasive personality and that she’s truly lost everything (“Martha Stewart got everything back,” she whines, making one of the feature’s few semi-contemporary references.)
With everything gone, Darnel finds herself back in business when she decides to lead Claire and Claire’s young daughter Rachel (Ella Anderson) into a brownie business where “Darnel’s Darlings” – a Girl Scout-like troop of predominantly angry young women — sell brownies door to door.
The film’s concept offers rife opportunities for McCarthy to deliver her distinct brand of humor — a brand of physical comedy and silly antics that previously elevated movies like Spy and The Heat. Instead, the comedy here is more akin to that in Tammy, which was a vulgar showcase for its leading lady.
It comes as no surprise that director Ben Falcone — McCarthy’s real-life husband, who has played a supporting character in many of her films — directed Tammy. In both films, vulgarity and obnoxiousness replaced smart humor with low-brow jokes and vulgar antics.
Here though, the movie’s outrageousness feels even more foul considering that Darnel spends much of her time lecturing young women in the brownie business. Darnel’s vulgar language isn’t funny to begin with and it’s even more unsettling when young women begin to mimic her. There’s even a time here when Darnel’s Darlings engage in an ugly street fight with a troop of rivals who are trying to see cookies door to door.
The potential for this story to really work was there. The screenplay by McCarthy, Falcone and Steve Mallory offers a reasonable outline for a funny comedy that explores a successful businesswoman’s attempts at a comeback. In telling the story though, the scriptwriters were seemingly satisfied with the most disgusting or lowbrow joke they could find. There are a lot of jokes about lesbianism here and about sexual organs. There are a lot of jokes about profanity and violence. But there aren’t a lot of jokes that really work.
Like other raunchy movies, The Boss offers a warm-hearted third act where terrible characters try to find redemption. Such scenes feel out-of-place in a movie that is overwhelmed with nasty insults, crude behavior and hateful characters. I wish that the filmmakers here had realized how to make the most out of McCarthy’s tremendous talents as a comedic performer but they settled for a lot less than what McCarthy and this set-up deserved.
She’s never done a thing for me.
I am not sure if I get it or not but have seen the ads for it.
It seems the media are in some kind of contest to see just how crude, rude, offensive, and hateful towards anything conservative, they can get.
Melissa McCarthy is watchable. She’s like Michael Moore in drag. Disgusting pig.
Haven’t seen anything on television that is worth more than a cynical chuckle, so what’s new?
Like her in Mike & Molly, though.
McCarthy is talented. But her problem is she is typecast in all of her movies. The characters could be pretty much interchanged.
Get the girl some decent writers and she would be fine.
She tends to gravitate to the vulgar. Not my cup of tea.
Finally, someone I dislike more than Will Ferrell.
This is the fat, ugly chick who lost some weight and now thinks she isn’t fat and ugly anymore, right? Ugh.
I loved her in Gilmore Girls but have never seen her in anything else. She seems to work a lot, though.
Man, I really miss my wife.
In the 13 years or so I knew her before she passed, I NEVER, NOT ONE SINGLE TIME heard anything at all vulgar coming from her mouth.
Not even a “damn”, or a “hell”... nothing. She was A LADY!!!
Yes. You are right. She has the chops. It’s crappy writing and squeezing every dollar out of her “overnight” success.
Fatty has diarrhea and poops into a sink.
Ha...ha...
Chris Farley always said that he didn't want to do just "fat guy" jokes.
He wanted to play characters that had some depth and humanity.
And as far as Will Ferrell, I agree.
Not funny.
I have no idea how this guy keeps getting rich playing the *same* jerk over and over.
“Like her in Mike & Molly, though”
Cancelled, reviews for this movie aren’t very good either. Still expected to do 20 million box office this weekend. Americans like their fat foul mouthed comedians I guess.
“There’s even a time here when Darnel’s Darlings engage in an ugly street fight with a troop of rivals who are trying to see cookies door to door.”
While waiting to see Greek Wedding 2, in a practically empty theater with only 5 other women, this movie preview came on. The loud gasp among us was very loud. The street fight scene had knives. Teaching young girls to sell food through violent coercion and thuggery is not funny. We all we muttering out loud at the screen.
BTW Greek Wedding 2 was a nice family centered movie -FUNNY
She played a sweet character in Gilmore Girls.
Seems she like to be lewd, crude and socially unacceptable in her latest films, though.
Except “Spy”...I literally laughed out loud at that movie.
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