REVIEW: Melissa McCarthy is ‘The Boss’ and it’s pretty funny

Most contemporary movie comedians develop on-screen personas and then use that persona as they go from film to film. Take Melissa McCarthy, for example. She has sculpted this fowl-mouthed, but cute-as-a-button persona that she plays in every movie she does. And she’s at it again in “The Boss”.

Thankfully, McCarthy’s on-screen persona hasn’t grown old quite yet, and “The Boss” is chuckle-worthy more often than not.

In “The Boss”, McCarthy is Michelle Darnell, a wealthy business women with the entire world at her feet. That is, until she’s busted for insider trading. After her jail sentence, Michelle finds herself penniless and without any prospects, leading her to crash on seek shelter from her former assistant, Claire (Kristen Bell).

Michelle gets her fire back after attending a meeting of a Girl Scout-like organization, and decides she’s going to get back on top by selling brownies. In the process, she goes tete-a-tete with a former lover (played by Peter Dinklage) and has to decide whether to let Claire and her daughter into her heart.

In movies like “The Boss”, the lead character is the clown, and the rest of the cast gets to play straight men. McCarthy is charming, funny and game to make fun of herself. A lot of the laughs come from Michelle being humiliated. Some of her one-liners don’t land, but overall, she’s funny and likable enough to carry the movie.

The rest of the cast is there to react to McCarthy and they do a solid job. It’s nice to see Bell and Tyler Labine back on the big screen. Dinklage’s character is interesting, but his obsession with samurai seemed like something that was tacked on at the last minute. It didn’t really make sense and was kind of distracting.

While “The Boss” packs some good chuckles, it’s far from perfect. In addition to the oddness of Dinklage’s character, the film is extremely formulaic. You know where it will end up from the first frame. The humor relies heavily on profane one-liners, which often lack wit. Everybody knows that swearing is only funny when you do it the right way.

”The Boss” way lack originality or virtuoso filmmaking, but it’s funny and Kristen Bell is nice to look at. If you have 100 free minutes, there are far worse ways to spend them.

3 Indy Fedoras out of 5

MPAA Rating: R