'Like a Boss' wastes talents of comedic cast
“Like a Boss” - ★ ½
“Like a Boss” is the perfect airplane movie: something that won't distract you terribly much while you work The New York Times crossword puzzle during a long flight, periodically looking up at the screen when the 2-year-old in the seat behind you kicks the back of your chair. Oh well. At least that way you won't fall asleep.
In a warm movie theater with reclining lounge chairs, the risk of drifting off is far greater - which is, quite frankly, shocking, considering this is a Tiffany Haddish movie.
With Rose Byrne, the normally hilarious Haddish plays the co-owner of a small, bricks-and-mortar cosmetics shop named, after the childhood best friends, Mel & Mia's. (You know: the kind of quaint, stand-alone boutique selling hand-mixed foundation and blush that is ground using a mortar and pestle - the kind of place that doesn't actually exist, except on screen.)
A half-million dollars in debt, Mel and Mia are miraculously bailed out by Claire Luna (Salma Hayek), a predatory makeup mogul who immediately - and predictably - begins driving a psychological wedge between the business partners, playing Byrne's Mel (the money-minded one) off against Haddish's Mia (the creative one) so that Claire herself can assume a controlling interest in their company.
But the power of female friendship is too great, in a movie that keeps hammering that point home, between jokes about sex, marijuana and a baby-shower cake with a doll's head emerging from what looks like an anatomically correct 3-D model you'd find in an OB/GYN's office.
During a preview screening, the laughs were few and far between, even counting that cake scene. The roster of otherwise funny supporting actors - Billy Porter, Jennifer Coolidge, Karan Soni, Jimmy O. Yang - does little to leaven this flat loaf, which isn't just flavorless but half-baked. Case in point: Mel and Mia's product that initially draws the attention of Claire, for instance, is a single-use makeup kit called the One Night Stand, which isn't just a dumb idea, but a wasteful one. As wasteful as the film is of its talent.
As for director Miguel Arteta, a filmmaker who, from his 1997 breakout, “Star Maps,” to 2017's “Beatriz at Dinner,” has never been afraid to be edgy, even transgressive, it's a mystery why he would make this film, when Hollywood is full of no-name hacks willing to do the job.
True to its workplace-themed title, “Like a Boss” feels like a chore someone was handed. Perhaps oddest of all, Mel & Mia's company is all about selling makeup that doesn't hide a woman's natural beauty. But “Boss” trowels on the clown white, strenuously reaching for nonexistent yuks instead of trusting in the talent of its likable but ill-used cast.
Starring: Tiffany Haddish, Rose Byrne, Salma Hayek, Billy Porter, Jennifer Coolidge
Directed by: Miguel Arteta
Other: A Paramount Pictures Release. Rated R for language, sexual material and drug use. 83 minutes