Melissa McCarthy (Spy and Bridesmaids) always brings to the screen her own unique brand of humour. It borders on slapstick and awkwardness which is guaranteed to get your attention. Doing a film review of 'The Boss' was always going to be full of surprises. In 'The Boss' her character 'Michelle Darnell' is a successful corporate executive who gets caught out participating in Insider Trading by a rival executive / past love interest played by Peter Dinklage (Game Of Thrones). Consequently she finds herself doing time for her crime and when she complete this, she turns to a past employee played by Kristin Bell (Forgetting Sarah Marshall) who takes her in when no one else will.
'The Boss' has a central theme of having a moral compass in life no matter what life has thrown at you. McCarthy's character seems to have lost her way when it comes to this and her life and what matters is in direct contrast to what Bell's is. Bell is a single mum focused on bringing up her daughter played by Ella Anderson and always ensures she is provided for. So the stage is set for some very funny moments as McCarthy, Bell and Anderson's characters all try to live under the one house sharing day to day duties.Michelle (McCarthy) with a mind for making money sees an opportunity for her new direction in life by launching a chocolate Brownie business due to the unique Brownie recipe creation by Bell's character. Along the way plenty of laughs are to be had as the audience see's the growth of the business from a school fund raising project into a national company with its sales team being made up of odd ball kids. Everything seems to be going well from here for all concerned.
It is at this point of the film review of The Boss that I will express a few problems.It began with a scene where the sales team made up of mainly teenage kids and a few adults McCarthy and Bell included, embark on a very violent street fight against other girls from an opposition fund raising team. The graphic fighting was pointless and not funny, certainly not appropriate given the problems that are occurring in today's youth of coward punches and the like. Other points to note about this film are certain recurring lines such as 'sucking a man's D... i felt were over used and after the tenth time no longer had any script value. As mentioned in my first paragraph, Peter Dinklage's character had a past love affair that went wrong with McCarthy and he had never forgiven her for it. However in the last 5-10mins of the film McCarthy seems to find her way back to him? Not very plausible even for Hollywood standards. There is significant over use of language in this film but it is probably part of the territory of the type of humour that is being employed here.
In conclusion, my film review of "The Boss' certainly will tell you that it does have its flaws as mentioned above and will not win any awards. However in saying that, it will make you laugh a number of times due to the exceptional delivery style McCarthy has made her own. If you go into this film not expecting much as I did then you will come away having been entertained by the light comedy that 'The Boss' is.
