After watching Melissa McCarthy in Identity Thief I can say strongly that I am not a fan. I never have watched her TV show Mike and Molly. Benn knowing I am not a fan of her forced me to watch Spy as a review challenge you can read here. So when I decided to head to the movie theater tonight to do what Benn and I used to call shot gun movie watching, which is going to the theater and watching the next available showing, I was very, very sad that the next available showing was, The Boss. I wish I could tell you I liked it but if a movie is a comedy I think I am supposed to laugh. Well I really didn’t.
Michelle Darnell, played by Melissa McCarthy (Spy,) is powerful financial woman of industry who came from an orphanage as a child. However, because she has that history she is a mean, conniving, backstabbing woman who feels she has to do everything on her own. When she gets caught by her rival Renault, played by Peter Dinklage (Pixels,) for insider trading, she is sent to jail for five months and loses her empire. She is forced to move in with her former assistant Claire, played by Kristen Bell (Forgetting Sarah Marshal,) and her daughter Rachel, played by Ella Anderson (Unfinished Business.) As Michelle is living with Claire she is trying to find a way back to her wealth and may have found a way to do it with Claire’s brownies and inspired by Rachel’s Girl Scout like organization the Dandelions. However, as her new idea begins to take off multiple issues from her past begin to get in the way.
So I am not a chick, sorry, a woman, so I may not know why Melissa is so funny. To be honest I kind of want to like her. But I just start watching the comedy “magic” and it’s completely unfunny. I giggled once when the lawyer got the tennis ball to the throat. Now I did laugh out loud during the bra scene between Michelle and Claire. The ladies in the audience were just busting up out loud. Now I am curious to know, when two women start dropping f-bombs to each other but are like an inch from each other’s face and whispering because there are a bunch of children around is it funny because the situation is funny or is it funny because they have done it themselves? I wasn’t laughing because it seemed too easy. In fact the humor in this film was either Michelle cussing out loud in front of the kids and/or telling them to do something inappropriate or ridiculous physical comedy. Maybe I am old but seeing a bunch of girl scouts kicking each other’s ass is not as amusing as it sounds. Or how having Michelle talking for three minutes with spacers in her mouth is at all funny.
I would like to give a special shout out to little Ella Anderson. I thought she did a very nice job as the young daughter and had good comedic timing for a young actress. She also was believable when she had to be sad about a situation involving Michelle and Claire. I wouldn’t say she was the best out there but she was definitely enjoyable to watch. I also wasn’t completely annoyed with Kristen Bell in this film which for me is an oddity. Maybe its because I was so annoyed with Melissa McCarthy that it outweighed my normal disdain for her. But I am inclined to believe that it was her being somewhat enjoyable in the film. I am also a big fan of Peter Dinklage ever since I saw him in the movie The Station Agent and he has made it big in Game of Thrones but being in this film and last year’s Pixels are odd choices to be in. Still he isn’t bad in this film although the whole Samurai sword fight at the end of the movie was ridiculous.
I can’t really recommend this film unless you are a huge fan of Melissa McCarthy. I am going to continue to try and find movies with her in them so I can find something I can like. I want to be a fan but not there yet.
The official BBMC Blog for Brian "The Naked Gun" Felts 