Anders: Horrible Bosses 2 (2014)

In an age where every moderately successful film is serialised or franchised ad infinitum, there’s something homely about encountering a sequel that’s as modest in its ambitions as Horrible Bosses 2. Content to simply repeat the formula of the first film without setting up anything further to follow, it’s about the same trio, faced with the same problem, resorting to the same solution. Admittedly, this time around Nick (Jason Bateman), Dale (Charlie Day) and Kurt (Jason Sudeikis) are being ripped off by a pair of investors (Christoph Waltz and Chris Pine) rather than their employers per se. Granted, too, they resort to kidnapping, rather than attempted murder. But, in tone and style, it’s largely a repeat of the first film, bringing in two of the original bosses – David (Kevin Spacey) and Julia (Jennifer Anniston) – along with Jamie Foxx’s “Motherfucker” Jones to seal the deal. Yet that’s not exactly to say that it’s the same experience as watching the first film, since Sean Anders has a feel for the low-key cosiness and familiarity of a classic sequel that’s become quite rare in a cinematic milieu where the next film always has to intensify and exceed what’s come before. Certainly, there are moments where Horrible Bosses 2 falls into that trap, trying to outshock the original with jokes that tend to fall flat, and one-liners that don’t have the ingenuity or comic timing to distract you from how offensive they actually are. At the same time, though, the low-energy skulking and sneaking around that was nascent in the first film is drawn out here, with the whole first act of the film following the trio as they peer through windows, hide in cupboards and linger around property lines, waiting for just the right moment to cross one circuitous, cartoony, comic threshold after another. Accompanied by a more or less continuous low-level groove that’s intermittently punctuated by late-night classic-hits radio stations, this part of the film actually feels longer than the film itself, or at least more immersive, attuned to a quite old-fashioned sense of the nightsprawl that works perfectly with the Los Angeles backdrop, and gathers you up like a late-night drive before we had social media mobility to tether us to any one location or destination. If the "bosses" in both films maintain their power through digital surveillance of one kind of another, then the momentum of this opening act, which percolates through the rest of the film, offers in its own way some memorable moments of analog resistance or at least oblivion, as well as the most refined poise and timing from Bateman, Sudeikis and Day, all consummate low-level comics in their different ways.