Review: The Boss (2016)

I have been avoiding writing this review after hearing what people thought about The Boss but I love Melissa McCarthy and so I was still desperate to see it.

Michelle Darnell (Melissa McCarthy) is a big shot gazillionaire running a large corporation but gets arrested for insider trading and sent to prison,  Once she is released, she has nothing and ends up on the doorstep to her assistants (Kristen Bell) apartments looking for somewhere to stay.  Ultimately, she ends up setting up a better version of the Dandelions cookie sales with Claire's brownies.

As you can tell from my horrific blurb, the plot is terrible and it doesn't improve as it goes on but it was funny.  I laughed a lot (I can't confirm 100% that this wasn't down to the glass of wine I had beforehand or that I was with my funniest friend!) and one scene made me laugh to the point I couldn't catch my breath.  I'm certain that this wouldn't hold up on a second viewing (unless I was tipsy again) and I'm pretty sure that now I know how the plot ends I would find the whole thing even more ridiculous.

I wanted so badly to like this movie. I loved Melissa McCarthy in Bridesmaids, The Heat and Spy. When she's cast in a supporting role her loud and aggressive moments are hilarious, but given the lead role, it all gets too much for me. In fact, movies she's in turn into marmite for me, I either love them or hate them. I hated Identity Theft, hated Tammy, even St. Vincent which I know a lot of people loved. That left the score 3-3 until The Boss. You hated St Vincent?! But how?! All I even remember is she left her kid with a complete stranger for hours on end, and that alone annoyed me so much I stopped paying attention!

The trailer didn't sell the movie to me at all, in fact it was Jenna telling me about how much it made me laugh that got me to give it a chance. There was nothing funny about the opening scene, in fact the only time I really laughed was the bra moment, but I could stick it out for the brownie business, I wanted to see where that went. After a while I must have nodded off, because the next thing I remember was Melissa McCarthy and Peter Dinklage having a sword fight on the roof of a building. What?!

I'm struggling to rate this because the more I think about it the more I dislike it but when I watched it actually enjoyed it.  I certainly don't think this hits the comedy levels of McCarthy's collaborations with Paul Feig but I don't think much will.

The score was going to be 3-4 on my Melissa McCarthy movie, love it or hate it meter, but since writing this Ghostbusters has been released which I loved, leaving the score 4-4 now. Her next movie could go either way!