The Boss ** (2016, Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Bell, Peter Dinklage, Kathy Bates) – Movie Review

Melissa McCarthy plays the aggressively way over-confident self-made millionairess Michelle Darnell, who is sent to jail for insider trading. She emerges broke, and dumps herself on her much put-upon assistant Claire (Kristen Bell), ready to re-brand herself as America’s latest sweetheart. Desperate for a second chance – never gonna happen! – she finds herself selling Girl Guides-style cookies, being horrible to the kids and everyone else, and taking on the small and slimy villain Renault (Peter Dinklage).

Co-writer / director Ben Falcone’s disappointing comedy sends McCarthy to a comedy jail she can’t get out of – a one-joke character that’s dragged through a series of increasingly desperate-seeming comedy situations in search of big laughs. It’s a smug, sour character too, but one we’re supposed to warm to – never gonna happen!

There are laughs to be found here and McCarthy’s a hard worker in a stop-at-nothing turn, but she seems stranded in the weakly plotted storyline and sagging bag of gags, co-written by McCarthy, her husband Falcone and Steve Mallory. The movie is 99 minutes but it seems like one of those two-hours plus epic comedies that outstay their welcome.

Kristen Bell proves a useful foil for McCarthy, mostly just the straight person butt of her jokes, but she does it well, and Ella Anderson does OK as her long-suffering daughter Rachel. But Dinklage isn’t funny and Kathy Bates, who can be funny, has little to do as Ida Marquette.

And it’s a shame that all the best sight gags and one-liner jokes are in the trailer.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Movie Review

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