January is that time of the year where we look forward to new beginnings, ambitious resolutions, and crappy movies. January is known as the “dumping ground” for movies because studios like to dump their bad films here with little promotion or support and hope to get a quick buck. So when a film such as Like a Boss gets a January release date, it is typically the kiss of death. Of course there have been exceptions to this rule, can this film be one of them? Nope! While not terrible, Like a Boss certainly isn’t good either. Just a studio dump that deserves better for everyone involved.
Like a Boss follows Mia (Tiffany Haddish) and Mel (Rose Byrne), two women who grew up together and created their own beauty company. When they begin to go into debt, a successful owner of a large makeup company named Claire Luna (Salma Hayek) decides to pay their debts off in exchange for half their company But there is a caveat. If one of them quits, she gets full control. Now the two lifelong friends must fight to align their ideals and stick together in the midst of manipulation from their new partner. It is a simple and fine premise that with the right effort, can become something fun. Unfortunately, that is not what we get. We instead get a rather lame and ordinary story that takes no risks and becomes bored with itself midway through. Sitting at 83 minutes long including credits, you can tell they had the basis of a story but mailed it in halfway through. With a title like “Like a Boss” you can imagine a studio executive was looking at script titles, saw this one, and decided to go with it because it was a popular phrase when The Lonely Island made a song with the same title. It is the classic “hey that’s popular, let’s go with that” thinking that gets these subpar movies made and dumped in January.
The real problem with Like a Boss is that they had no interesting ideas on their hands. It has a “make it up as we go along” feel where they give talented actresses bland material and hope they can carry the way. The film starts fine and has the premise where a little mind manipulation pits these two against each other and causes them to fracture. If that is the case, the manipulation needs to be real and I have to believe the fracture of their friendship as it cracks, and I simply did not. There was nothing clever Also are we really supposed to buy that this is the first argument these two have had in their entire friendship? Of course not, because that would make no sense and it would be stupid. It’s as if you were on a rollercoaster that was going up, it gets stuck halfway there, and then they just pull it back to the start and say “fun, right?”. No! I wanted a rollercoaster, not a ferris wheel.
Now it may seem like this movie has nothing going for it, but it is not all bad. For one, Tiffany Haddish and Rose Byrne are doing their best to lift this material and make something of it. I buy that they are good friends and they have terrific chemistry. Tiffany does the same shtick she does in all her movies. Some they work in and some not but in this one, it fits the bill. I just hope she does something different soon before she becomes stale. Rose is just fine, I just know she is better than this. Salma Hayek is having a blast in her role. She steals every scene as this over the top boss and brings some different energy with each moment. Billy Porter steals the movie though. Each scene of his is hilarious and he knows exactly what tone is needed for this film. There are funny lines here and there and some jokes do hit, there is just nothing particularly interesting about anything in this film.
Like a Boss is a harmless studio dump that with a little more effort and time could’ve been a serviceable comedy. It does have its laughs and the cast is doing their best, but there is nothing here worth running home about. This film will have an audience and people will find this funny, but if you want a comedy that is smart and can challenge you, this is not it. There are plenty worse January films, but this film does nothing to deserve your time.
The Verdict