Playing the kind of twisted characters with whom no one would want to spend more than five minutes stuck in an elevator, Melissa McCarthy has become a household name. Unfortunately, by the end of a feature length comedy, the unlikeable people she portrays can grow more grating than funny. In The Boss McCarthy digs into her comedy beginnings, playing Michelle Darnell, a character McCarthy created during her early days performing at the Groundlings Theater in Los Angeles. Michelle is a larger-than-life business mogul with a foul mouth and a huge ego—and McCarthy commits to her fully. In other words, The Boss is more of the same.
After serving a four-month prison sentence for insider trading, Michelle is left with nowhere to turn but to her ex-employee, Claire (Kristen Bell), for some shelter and moral support as she tries to adjust to life as a poor soul, figuratively and literally. While attending a meeting care of Claire’s daughter, Rachel (Ella Anderson), and her cookie-selling Girl Scout troop, Michelle has the obvious idea of turning these selfless volunteers into motivated employees by forming a company that sells brownies. Claire bakes them, the Scouts sell them and Michelle runs the business.
While director Ben Falcone (McCarthy’s husband) is able to focus the ridiculous story to keep from getting bogged down by meaningless subplots, he’s got a much weaker handle on individual scenes. Michelle making Claire feel self-conscious about her clothing choices before a date is a quick and dirty gag, but after six more jabs at her boring shirt or her unsexy bra, the feeling that we’ve been here and done this too many times before starts to sink in. Granted, the pacing of this 90-minute comedy still sails along so quickly it seems like even the filmmakers wanted to get it over with. One minute treats are sold door-to-door during what one assumes are after school hours, the next minute Michelle and her young team have a brick-and-mortar store with television slots promoting Claire’s prized product. Somehow The Boss manages to both feel too brisk and not brisk enough.