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Horrible Bosses, we’ve all had at least one at some point in our working lives and haven’t we all wished they’d just die? That’s the theme explored here in this Seth Gordon comedy staring Jason Bateman, Kevin Spacey and Jennifer Anniston which falls short of the laughs you’d be expecting.

Nick Hendricks (Bateman), Dale Arbus (Charlie Day) and Kurt Buckman (Jason Sudeikis) all have different working relationships with their bosses. Nick believes you have to work hard for a task master to get recognition and achievements, but when his boss (Kevin Spacey) doesn’t offer him the promotion he was after, he decides enough is enough. Kurt loved his job, until his boss died and the business was taken over by his cokehead son (Colin Farrell), now he wants to get rid of the boss to make things better. Dale is a registered sex offender so the only job he could get was as a dental nurse. However his boss (Jennifer Anniston) is a sex deviant who rapes and molests patients and wants to do the same to Dale.

The three try to hire a hitman to off their bosses for them but when it goes awry, it is down to the employees to do the dirty work themselves.

It is a sorry state of affairs when the outtakes during the end credits make you laugh more than anything in the film and that’s exactly what happens here. The cast try, and whilst it’s refreshing to see both Kevin Spacey and Jennifer Anniston mix up the roles they’re usually cast in, they can’t save the film.

It’s said that director Seth Gordon was behind allowing the cast to improvise their lines if they wanted to, does this mean that he didn’t have faith in the script? Either way the dialogue really flounders along and whilst Charlie Day may be a smash on “It’s Always Sunny…” he really starts to grind here.

Bit parts from Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx don’t go down too well either and Iaon Gruffudd (Fantastic Four’s Mr. Fantastic) must be thanking the stars they kept his scene in despite it being among the weakest set piece in the film.

In short, Horrible Bosses isn’t too nice itself, albeit not exactly horrible, the film never really gets anywhere and leaves you with a cast so irritating you’d wish they had been the ones people were trying to get rid of.