The Boss (2016)

• Year: 2016
• Released: 08 Apr 2016
• Country: United States
• Adwords: 3 nominations
• IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2702724/
• Rotten Tomatoes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_boss
• Metacritics: https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-boss
• Available in: 720p, 1080p,
• Language: English
• MPA Rating: R
• Genre: Comedy
• Runtime: 99 min
• Writer: Melissa McCarthy, Ben Falcone, Steve Mallory
• Director: Ben Falcone
• Cast: Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Bell, Peter Dinklage
• Keywords: duringcreditsstinger, ex-con, business woman, girl scouts,

	5.4/10
	40/100

The Boss Storyline

Michelle Darnell is the wealthy (she the forty-eighth richest woman in the US), successful, narcissistic, brash, and over-the-top businesswoman of her self-branded empire based in Manhattan. She is a manifestation of her upbringing, she, an orphan, having been rejected by a series of parents who did adopt her but ended up sending her back to the Catholic orphanage. Her life changes abruptly when turned in to the authorities by cutthroat business rival Renault (whose real name is Ronald, he changing it to sound more important) for insider trading, he a serious boyfriend twenty-five years ago before either became rich and successful. Upon her release from prison, Michelle, now bankrupt with no where to go and no one to turn to with her most recent associates having burnt their bridges in their true dislike for her, ends up turning to who was her hard working but unappreciated assistant, single mom Claire Rawlings, taking Michelle into her tiny Brooklyn apartment only on the urging of her empathetic ten year old daughter, Rachel Rawlings. With none of those former associates even wanting to speak to her, Michelle has to find a way to get back on her feet to the style to which she is accustomed. She believes she’s found a way through both Rachel and Claire, who have to decide if Michelle is worth the risk, her business plan which does have at its core girl empowerment which she herself learned the hard way. Michelle herself may be the biggest obstacle in well hidden insecurities coming to the surface.

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The Boss Movie Reviews

Another McCarthy-Falcone misfire.

Sometimes a filmmaker is simply too emotionally invested in a movie to see when it needs to be better than it’s turning out to be. Of course, every filmmaker needs to be passionate about his/her cinematic endeavor, but there is such a thing as letting emotions get in the way of sound artistic judgment. It often happens when the same person both writes and directs a movie (his/her “passion project”), especially when also acting in the movie. Then, there’s an even greater danger of things going wrong when these kinds of overlaps involve a married couple. It happened when Dax Shepard wrote, co-directed and starred in the pointless action-comedy “Hit and Run” (2012) which co-starred his real-life wife Kristen Bell. In 2014, another couple, Melissa McCarthy and Ben Falcone, took the practice of overlapping jobs and complicating it with marriage to another level by co-writing and co-starring in “Tammy” while Falcone also directed. That movie made money, but was poorly received by most critics and many Movie Fans as well. 2016 has the pair taking the same chance with the comedy “The Boss” (R, 1:39), which, ironically, co-stars Kristen Bell (but her husband is nowhere in sight). So, is “The Boss”… boss? Read on.

McCarthy stars as Michelle Darnell, a high-powered businesswoman and motivational speaker whose childhood (back and forth between an orphanage and foster care) taught her that the only person she can depend on is herself. She’s self-centered, arrogant and basically amoral. Michelle generally uses and abuses her personal assistant, Claire (Bell), and Michelle’s bodyguard isn’t much more than her personal hype man. When Michelle is arrested for insider trading and sent to jail for five months, everyone abandons her, former lover and long-time business rival Renault (Peter Dinklage) buys her companies and the authorities freeze all of her remaining assets. Looks like someone has to start all over again.

When Michelle is released from jail, she doesn’t have anyone to call or anywhere to go, so she takes a taxi to Claire’s apartment. When Claire gets home from her new job (where she works for a crazy Darnell disciple played by SNL’s Cecily Strong), Claire’s pre-teen daughter, Rachel (Ella Anderson), convinces her mom that they have to do something to help Michelle. Claire allows her former boss to stay in the apartment until she gets back on her feet, but Michelle’s feet remain reclined on Claire’s couch until Claire forces Michelle to do something to earn her keep. Michelle takes Rachel to her Dandelions meeting (think Girl Scouts) where the troop leader (Kristen Schaal) is discussing their cookie sales.

Michelle gets an idea that her “way back” is to form a group called Darnell’s Darlings which will teach girls business skills as they sell the unusually delicious brownies that Claire makes from an old family recipe. Michelle gets Claire to make the brownies and help with the troop and gets Rachel to help her recruit various tough girls and other misfits to join up and sell brownies for a percent of the profits. Michelle also approaches her estranged former mentor (Kathy Bates) for financing to help expand the business, but as all this is going on, Renault and his equally evil assistant (Timothy Simons) are keeping tabs on Michelle and her new business, hoping to increase the payback that he feels her still owes her.

“The Boss” is mostly unoriginal, uninspired, unrealistic and unfunny. The clichéd plot lazily recycles the often used story of a main character who has been hardened by a tough life and doesn’t know how to give or receive love. Falcone’s direction randomly makes use of McCarthy’s talent for physical comedy, but rarely gets her or the other actors to show us anything interesting or even very likable about their characters. Both the script and the acting give us characters who often change their tones and their attitudes toward other characters abruptly and with no clear reason why. We also see characters meeting for the first time, but acting like they already know each other, again without explanation.

There is also a lack of realism in the way the script portrays the fallout from Michelle’s crimes, and her business dealings as the head of Darnell’s Darlings, but this comedy’s biggest flaw is its lack of… comedy. There are a few laughs to be found here and there, but the movie’s other problems just kill the mood. Besides that, the movie’s attempts at humor are overly dependent on cartoonish violence involving children, cursing around, by and at children, and vulgar sexual references which come off as more crude than funny. McCarthy herself has been much funnier in previous films and hopefully she’ll be funnier again in her future projects. Sadly, her character in this film is one boss who should be fired herself. “D+”

McCarthy’s character was too abrasive, too selfish and too nasty.

If you think that seeing someone playing a nasty, abrasive, selfish jerk who curses non-stop…then this film is for you. As for me, I think the film was missing something most comedies have…a reason to care about the leading character.

Melissa McCarthy plays Michelle Darnell, a self-help guru who treats everyone around her like dirt. She’s amassed a huge fortune by lecturing, selling books and more….much like a foul-mouthed version of Tony Robbins. However, when she’s convicted of insider trading, she’s sent to prison. While the sentence isn’t very long, when she leaves she learns that pretty much everything she owned has been confiscated. So, she moves in with her old assistant, Claire (Kristen Bell), though there is no conceivable reason why Claire would have anything to do with her…as she’s completely repellent and awful and has learned nothing from her ordeal. She’s also a god-awful influence on Claire’s daughter. What’s next and, more importantly, who cares?!

If the notion of seeing McCarthy play a god-awful character who constantly curses and acts vulgar, then this film is for you. Some vulgarity can be funny (such as in “Step Brothers”)…constant vulgarity and nastiness simply makes you wonder “what were these people thinking???!!!”. I thought it was all way over the top and nothing like her sweet film “Spy”. I liked “Spy” and liked McCarthy’s character. But with “Boss”, I found her and her character very easy to hate. The film is occasionally funny…but not enough to make it possible to overlook McCarthy as Michelle. In fact, after a while I tired of all this and just turned it off and found something better…it was nearly over but I just didn’t care.

some good, some bad

Michelle Darnell (Melissa McCarthy) was rejected by adoptive parents many times and learned to not rely on families. She becomes a hard-nosed successful businesswoman. Darnell gets 5 months for insider trader after being outed by bitter ex Renault (Peter Dinklage). Her long-suffering assistant Claire Rawlings (Kristen Bell) finally quits. When she gets out of prison, she has nobody and nowhere to stay. She guilts Claire’s daughter Rachel for a place to crash. She goes to Rachel’s Dandelion meeting and decides to start the competing Darnell’s Darlings to sell Claire’s brownies. She convinces Claire to date Mike Beals (Tyler Labine) and quit her job under bad boss Dana Dandridge (Cecily Strong).

Some of the jokes work well and some others are awkwardly bad. There are plenty of stupid pratfalls that aren’t smart enough. Melissa needs to trim back those bad jokes that aren’t working. She and husband Ben Falcone need help to sharpen up their material. The basic premise has good bones. They have the lovely Kristen Bell. The little girls are cute and the girl fight is hilarious. Melissa and Ben have a tendency to inject bad low-grade comedy in all the wrong places. This is better than some of their other comedies and this could have worked much better than this.