Like a Boss - Jan 11

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, for a variety of reasons – at least my illness is over. Yay! Therefore, to celebrate it, I went to see the premiere of ‘Like a Boss’ (2020), and here is my impression: it also sucks. Practically as bad as reality itself does, even though for a non-superhero, sci-fi, or fantasy movie it is not very realistic at all.

…Let’s start at the beginning: why did I watch it? Firstly, because of Salma Hayek – any film with her is fun; she is a good comedic actress. And secondly it was because the duo of Tiffany Haddish and Rose Byrne looked good, in trailers and all. Moreover, guess what – they do.

Pause. Remember that reality sucks? Tiffany (Sarac) Haddish voice might have something to do with it, (among other things). I have no idea as to what is its’ state of affairs, but as far as I am concerned, she sounds perfectly asexual, neither man nor woman, so all of you who give the transgender people a hard time? Shut up, because Ms. Haddish is completely ‘natural’ woman yet she sounds anything but, while being a successful American actress, comedian and author at the same time. Where we were?

‘Like a Boss’ tried to be woke, just as ‘Dark Phoenix-2019’ did: its’ main leads are an Anglo-American, an Afro-American and a Latin-American, with the supporting cast being both WASPs and POCs, and the premise itself – sisters are doing it for themselves – isn’t so bad, but the way it is delivered? Is. There are plenty of ‘risqué’ and ‘R-rated’ jokes and somehow they undercut the movie’s main message, it is very hard to talk about ‘girl power’ when you are talking about ‘chocolate pubes’ and what else have you got. These days, it isn’t 1990s or even the early 2000s – people aren’t going to give you a pass just because you’re a woman and/or a person of color, something that ‘Like a Boss’ failed to realize. You need both talk the talk and walk the walk, and this is something the cast of ‘Like a Boss’ fails to do. Yes, the cast, especially the supporting characters, are full of all colors and body shapes, but, again, none of this goes anywhere but some tasteless jokes. ‘Like a Boss’ might be safe, it might be playing it safe, but the result fluctuates from being insipid when Salma Hayek isn’t on screen, and to her stealing the film when she is. Considering that her character is the movie’s main villain, this probably was not what the team at Paramount Pictures expected to happen, but what can you do? Even the aforementioned jokes tend to fall flat thanks to Ms. Haddish’s peculiar voice. ‘Like a Boss’ comes across as both a proper paint-by-numbers picture and a yucky mess that is located in place of a proper paint-by-numbers picture at the same time. That is worth a Razzie, I would say. Anything else.

…People are upset that ‘Joker-2019’ won an Oscar and ‘Hustlers’ didn’t. Live with it. It is not just Marvel movies that are landing hard punches these days, you know! There are worse things in life – for example, Bianca Andreescu is withdrawing from Australian Open. Did I mention that real life sucks? Fans of ‘Hustlers’ should realize it and move on. ‘Like a Boss’, which features Salma Hayek in place of ‘Hustlers’ J-Lo, isn’t liable to win any Oscars or be even in a consideration for running, though.

This is it for now. See you all soon!