Horrible Bosses (2011) was directed by Seth Gordon; starring: Kevin Spacey, Jennifer Aniston, Colin Farrell, Jason Bateman, Charlie Day, and Jason Sudeikis.
According to an international statistics 70.6% were subjected, in some point in their life, to bullying, mainly teens. One can’t deny that he was exposed to bullying or mockery in school, some way or another. We were waiting for graduation to have our own independency and bullying-free life, getting the job of your dream, but what if your boss was the bully, that what Hell on Earth would be, and that what “Horrible Bosses” represented. Kevin Spacey, Jennifer Aniston and Collin Farrell, represented the worst of any boss could ever be. They seem to be embodying the extreme, but that doesn’t mean they don’t reflect reality. “Horrible Bosses” is categorized as a comedy, but when you get into its details, it can reflect real life, big time. It can also represent the fantasy of every employee, planning to kill his own boss!
On one hand, Nick (Bateman) works at a financial firm for the sadistic psychopath David Harken (Spacey). Nick, instead of getting at work at 6:00 a.m. he went there at 6:02 a.m., he had a hard time from his boss for being late, sounds familiar?! Nick works for long hours, “goes to work before the sun comes up and leave long after it gone down”, and taking extra shifts aiming for a promotion that his boss keeps implying that it will be his , as long as he works harder and harder, and he didn’t even get the promotion, very familiar, isn’t it?! Nick has no personal life, no food in his home, he, literally, lives for his work; healthy? I don’t think so!
Harken is a huge manipulative boss, he is emotionally blackmailing Nick with the promotion he is dreaming about for years, to be a Senior Vice President, and then, in a meeting, being 15 minutes late himself, Harken, in front of everyone, he decided to absorb the responsibility of a SVP himself and have a huge enormous office. He thinks he is motivating his staff, but the truth is that he is just evil. He told Nick that he owns him and he can crush him any time, and that Nick has no free will, he treats Nick as his slave. In a movie it surely sounds funny, but in reality it is a misery, all workers face that Harken-like in their life. Evil bosses are everywhere, they want everything and they give nothing in return. That’s why 16% cannot stand their boss in the Middle East, 24% of bosses make employees feel de-valued and want to quit their job, 44% of employees say they have been emotionally or physically abused by a supervisor in their career. A part of Harken is in most bosses, according to real numbers.
On the other hand, Dale (Day) is a dental assistant who got sexually harassed by his boss, Dr. Julia Harris (Aniston), she threatens to tell his fiancée Stacy (Lindsay Sloane) that he had sex with her unless he actually has sex with her. It is really very familiar especially in the Middle East, mostly gender vice versa. Lots don’t have the chance to quit their jobs, may be not because being mistakenly accused as a sex offender, like Dale, but mainly the chances to get another job is near 11%. Lots of men and women, have to deal with their harassing boss, for the sake of the paycheck. According to International Labor Organization 54% had experienced some form of workplace sexual harassment, 79% of the victims are women; 21% were men, and 12% had received threats of termination if they did not comply with the requests of the sexual harassers. Dale is not a fiction character; he is real, very real indeed.
The third employee is Kurt ( Sudeikis) enjoys working for Jack Pellitt at a chemical company, but after Jack unexpectedly dies of a heart attack, the company is taken over by Jack’s cocaine-addicted son Bobby (Farrell). Bobby didn’t attend his father funeral; he tricked Kurt, when he came back from the funeral, to fire the fat and the cripple. Dealing with a racist, addicted boss is the worst of all, who didn’t care about the workers’ laws and I quote, “It is the united states of ME”. He is manipulative, he just wants to embarrass Kurt and make all the staff hate him, since bobby acted as the knight who would never accept such a procedure. Farrell perfectly impersonates the boss who doesn’t care about his own company. He only hates Kurt. Bobby-like bosses are the main reason that 3 out of four employees report their boss is the worst and the most stressful part of their job.
The three friends, Nick, Dale and Kurt, knew that quitting is impossible, especially after meeting Kenny, their friend, in the bar, who had quit his job and can’t afford for his drinks anymore. The three reached a very low point in their lives that they would either be miserable or kill their bosses, and for the sake of having a better life they decided they would choose the second option. They decided to hire a hit man, and that’s when the real comedy and the movie twist begin. The one and only (Jamie Foxx) an ex-con agreed to be their “murder consultant”, though he didn’t kill any one before, although he went to prison for a very reasonable reason, for me.
I suggest, if you would may, that you recommend this movie to your boss, saying, “I can’t believe there are such evil bosses in the world, may be it is science fiction, I want you to see it and tell me”… and believe me after watching such a movie, your boss will think twice before giving you any hard time.
A word of advice for all the bosses out there, don’t make any of your employees reach the point that they would say, “If one evil person have to die for the greater good, so be it”. Bad bosses are ruining workplaces, causing mental health issues, and stressing out employees. Have mercy, you have been an employee yourself one day.
Abir Yassin