Michelle’s explosive and crass tongue occasionally delivers some darkly poetic put-downs, and to these The Boss owes many of its highlights. If the comedic balance was in favour of these subtle sharp-witted lines, rather than the over-the-top in-your-face slapstick that prevails, it would be a much stronger film. On top of this, bit-part characters brimming with potential importance are thrust in and dragged out with equal impatience.įor all the script’s shortcomings, there are flashes of astute humour. Michelle’s decline begins very early in the film, which doesn’t allow much time for her previous life of power and extravagance to act as the weighty anchor it should be to her crippling arrest. PA Claire is pulled obligingly into dicey ventures that are antithetical to her character and responsibilities.

You can almost hear the wrenching of the precisely engineered plot twists, steering a clichéd path without too much preoccupation with logic. The storyline runs more like a clunky man-made waterway than a free-flowing river. Her do-or-die attitude propels her to the top, until she is arrested on account of insider trading and she has to start again from scratch, with the help of her humble former PA Claire (Kristen Bell).

She amassed her billions from nothing, coming from a background of neglect. Michelle is a wealthy entrepreneur whose default gaze is down her nose. The Boss is Michelle Darnell, played by Melissa McCarthy, who sprinkles as much brilliance into this role as she did in the much-loved Bridesmaids and The Heat, only this time she has her work cut out. Some moments sparkle, aided by the film’s better gags, but they are hung upon a frail skeleton of a script. With a gutsy, go-getting, and occasionally funny female lead, The Boss is dripping with potential, a potential eroded by mediocre writing and scenes which slip into the farcical.

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