HORRIBLE BOSSES, a black comedy crime escapade, whacked a lot of funnybones in 2011, enough to grab a ton of money, nab mostly positive reviews and prime a sequel in 2014. Unless you’re among the lucky or blessed (or maybe the undeserving) who’ve never had to work chances are you’ve had supervisors who made an okay job a chore to endure. SOB’s & shrews, flexing egos & abusing power—hopefully earning the sweet backhand of retribution—have figured in many a flicker fairy tale (9 to 5, The Devil Wears Prada, Working Girl and Office Space whisper around the cooler); this one has justified desserts served up by a good cast. Too bad its lazy f-bombing script is mostly just another course in coarseness.

Riverside, California, pop. 321,000. Among those in that outer-La La sprawlville are friends ‘Nick’ (Jason Bateman), ‘Kurt’ (Jason Sudekis) and ‘Dale’ (Charlie Day), each of whom have had just about all they can take from their ‘superiors’. At the office warren of ‘Comnidyne’, Nick is bullied by sadistic bigshot ‘Dave Harken’ (Kevin Spacey); Kurt’s once-happy position at a chemical company is shafted by degenerate weasel ‘Bobby Pellitt’ (Colin Farrell); Dale’s days as a dental assistant are a moral toothache thanks to the ceaseless sexual harassment from ‘Dr. Julia Harris'(Jennifer Aniston), a dentist with a voracious appetite for on-site drilling. Pushed too far, the guys take the hypothetical and mold it into the existential: we gotta kill ’em.

Directed by Seth Gordon, written by Michael Markowitz, John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, running 98 minutes, the culprit in this $36,000,000 venture isn’t in personnel (save one, the actors are fine) but in redundant layers of middle-management: the script’s numbing reliance on constant profanity; meanness from the bosses so acute that it’s distressing rather than delightful; the absurdity ingredients are baked in sulfuric acid, and by minute 40 the bolt’s been shot and you’re stuck with another hour to go. Count the cuss words and bodily function references, divide by the laughs. Plus the ‘heroes’ are such dullard dips that the villains are by default more vital and interesting. Charlie Day’s whining is annoying enough to crack your molars: some wrinkle in the time-space continuum saw him singled out for praise in review after review, one of those mystifying herd-think situations in which the answer is “I give up”.

Alas, just because, like moi, some weren’t bowled over, that doesn’t mean you won’t think it’s a laff riot.  A worldwide gross of $209,800,000 was reeled in, 56.1% of that in the States & Canada where it slid into 23rd place for the year. Another $18,300,000 was banked from disc purchases. *

With Donald Sutherland, Julie Bowen, Wendell Pierce, Ron White, Ioan Gruffudd, Bob Newhart, Chad Coleman and Meghan Markle. Three years later, Horrible Bosses 2 did half as well at the box office, 61st in ’14.

* Not Just Me Dept.—Karina Longworth from The Village Voice: “even without these particular emasculators, Dale, Kurt and Nick would still be—for lack of a better word—total pussies.”  Josh Larsen of Larsen on Film: “The troubling thing isn’t that the rampant sexual humor is so crude, but that it’s so angry.”Peter Rainer from The Christian Science Monitor: “The coarseness wouldn’t be so bad if at least the steady stream of obscenities were funny. But there is, after all, an art to talking dirty.”  Kyle Smith at the New York Post. “Look at how crazy is the craziness we are doing for you. Isn’t it crazy? the movie shouts, and the more it does, the less you’ll laugh.”  Joe Morgenstern from the Wall Street Journal:  “Watching good actors let their hair down can be fun, but watching them let their standards down isn’t.” A-f’ing-men.