A really great premise – 9 to 5 meets (a name-checked) Strangers on a Train – and some decent comedic performances get squandered in director Seth Gordon’s homicidal workplace comedy that simply isn’t wicked enough to be truly deadly.
Three put upon drones (Jason Bateman, Charlie Day and Jason Sudeikis) working in Los Angeles really hate their bosses, and not without reason; Bateman’s corporate dogsbody Nick is devotedly on the leash of all round business bastard Dave Harken, a Kevin Spacey treading water in a watered down version of his Swimming with Sharks Svengali, in the hope of getting a promotion. Day’s dental nurse Dale, unemployable anywhere else, is subjected daily to hostile sexual harassment courtesy of nympho cougar Jenifer Aniston’s diabolical dentist. While Sudeikis’ sex-addicted accountant Kurt, unwilling to let his workplace go to the dogs, suffers from the paranoiac whims of Colin Farrell’s coke-addicted heir to the chemical plant Donald Sutherland’s cameo death leaves behind.
