Like a Boss - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Like A Boss



Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:


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Movie
There are some movies that just scream quality from the moment the trailer comes out. You see skill, humor, and a story line that will rivet you form the minute you start till the second the film ends. Then there are movies that immediately have your spidey sense saying “Danger, Danger Will Robinson!”, causing you to immediately run out of the theater or movie store in absolute terror after watching the trailer. Sadly, Like a Boss is more of the latter than the former, as I pretty much guessed from the 2 minute trailer that we were NOT in for an amazing time. However, I couldn’t have possibly estimated just how bad the film would turn out, as I was thoroughly shocked and horrified at the train wreck that unfolded on screen.

Mia (Tiffany Haddish) and Mel (Rose Byrne) have been best friends since childhood, growing up together and subsequently starting their own beauty products line together. Mia is the creative genius behind the makeup, while Mel is the straight laced one who keeps the company together financially. Together the two have made a decent array of beauty products and spent a glorious 20 years of being together in a small business. However, that beautiful story is about to come to an end when Mel informs Mia that they’re nearly half a million dollars in debt and on the verge of shutting down the company in 6 months. Luckily for the two Claire Luna (Salma Hayek), makeup mogul, wants to help the girls out. She sees potential in their latest product and wants to invest in the company for a share of the profits.

When the two girls don’t sign over 51% of the company, Claire decides it’s time to play dirty, and sweetly agrees to 49%, while secretly pitting the two life long friends against each other in hopes of destroying their friendship and taking over. Nit picking at their ideas while feeding them platitudes, Claire worms and wheedles her way in between Mel and Mia, till both women want to murder each other. That is, until they figure out what’s going on and decide to turn the tables on the beauty mogul and take back what is rightfully theirs.

I’m usually a big fan of raunchy comedies, but Like a Boss pretty much falls flat in all respects. It’s not that the premise is bad, or that the two comedians in charge are bad, it’s just that neither of them really has any chemistry with the other, and the script is so badly written that I was visibly cringing at fart, diarrhea and genital jokes from the first few minutes of the film. And sadly it doesn’t get any better. I like Rose Byrne as the mousy Mel, but Tiffany Haddish just makes me want to rip my face off with a butter knife whenever she’s in a new movie (supposedly her stand-up is a lot better). I’ve never seen a modern comedy that she’s been in that I actually like, and while she’s palatable here, she just doesn’t really gel well with Rose’s character. The two aren’t really likable as friends, and the awkward writing doesn’t do either of them any justice either.

It looks like I’m not alone with my rejection of the film, as the $30 million movie could BARELY make $30 million worldwide. A wince worthy haul that will probably net Paramount a hefty $40 million loss when all is said and done. While I love Salma Hayek (seriously, the woman almost gets more beautiful with age) and Rose Byrne is a personal favorite of mine, Like a Boss just dives straight of a creative cliff and doesn’t stop till it crash lands at the bottom with a syrupy sweet ending that could be seen coming from a mile away. It’s not creative, it’s not even entertaining, and certainly not a movie that we want in our collections.




Rating:

Rated R for language, crude sexual material, and drug use




Video:

The film comes to Blu-ray with a very VERY nice looking 2.39:1 framed Digital image. The film is very glossy and shiny, with heavily saturated colors and plenty of pop and pizazz to them. The world of a beauty salon is filled with bright red lipstick, colorful dresses, and the pomp and glory of Claire Luna’s sterile, yet classy, office. Facial details are incredible, showing off every crease and facial line (some of them probably unintentional as you can see the makeup on the women’s face a bit too easily) and black levels are appropriately deep and inky. I did notice some crush in the expos background and a few seconds of banding, but those are definitely fleeting. It’s an overall excellent looking digital encode and probably the best aspect of this home video release.








Audio:

Like a Boss comes to Blu-ray with a very healthy 7.1 Dolby TrueHD track that is almost a bit overkill for the meager trappings of a basic comedy. The track itself is excellent, it’s just that the film is very front heavy and doesn’t have a lot of surround capable scenes outside of the end song and dance number (yes, the movie has a song and dance number if you can believe it). The dialog is crisp and cleanly located up front, while the surrounds capture mild ambient sounds from the offices and city environments that the girls are in. The end of the film is probably the most robust, with some decent bass and more surround intensive aspects of being in a giant makeup expo, complete with jabbering crowd and musical accompaniment. To put it simply, it’s a basic comedy track with all of the limitations of a dialog intensive mix. The track does everything well, but is still slightly constrained due to the nature of the movie’s sound design.







Extras:

• With Coworkers Like These, Who Needs Friends?
• "Get Some" with Ron and Greg
• Deleted Scenes

Final Score: ​

I wasn’t expecting a whole ton from Like a Boss, but I really wasn’t expecting to be dissapointed this much, especially with my already low expectations. Sadly the movie is just an excruciating experience despite the short 83:23 run time. The script is poorly written, the leads have bad chemistry, and completely unfunny (I may have laughed once). Paramount has done a good job with the technical specs though, giving us great video and good comedy audio, but sadly dropping the ball in the extras department. So if you WERE one of the 5 people who were a fan of the movie, then you should be pretty pleased with the Blu-ray disc. Otherwise, I would just recommend running away in terror and skipping it completely.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Tiffany Haddish, Rose Byrne, Salma Hayek, Jennifer Coolidge, Ryan Hansen, Billy Porter
Directed by: Miguel Arteta
Written by: Sam Pitman, Adam Cole-Kelly
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 AVC
Audio: English: Dolby TrueHD 7.1 Core, English DVS, German, Spanish (Latin), Spanish (Castilian), French, French (Canadian), Italian, Japanese, Portuguese
Subtitles: English, English SDH, Danish, German, Spanish (Latin), Spanish (Castilian), French, French (Canadian), Italian, Japanese, Dutch, Norwegian, Turkish, Portuguese, Finnish, Swedish
Studio: Paramount
Rated: R
Runtime: 84 minutes
Blu-Ray Release Date: April 21st, 2020

Recommendation: Skip It

 

[tripplej]

Thanks for the review. Looks like one I will skip as well.

 

[Todd Anderson]

Cover Art Police... WHERE ARE YOU??? Michael, you're taking arrows for us. And we appreciate it. ;-)