Though the film boasts a screenplay that's credited to a trio of scribes (including John Francis Daley, still known to some as little Sammy Weir from Freaks and Geeks), Horrible Bosses more often resembles a movie that was made up almost entirely on the spot and not just because the narrative is a mess. Where a comedy like the aforementioned Bridesmaids or The Hangover Part II follows a clear structure while still leaving room for improvisation, this one lurches from scene to scene as if director Seth Gordon was having such a good time watching his actors -- most of whom are skilled improvisers -- just riff off each other that he neglected to call "Cut." On the one hand, the movie's lackadaisical approach is frustrating because it's all too clear that, with a firmer hand at the wheel (like, say, Edgar Wright or Community's Joe and Anthony Russo), this could have been a tight, fat-free 90-minute blast of hilarity. At the same time, much of the pleasure of the film lies in watching the three heroes -- played by Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis and Charlie Day -- shoot the shit as best friends do, only occasionally remembering their characters' primary mission: to kill their bosses.

In its premise if not its execution, Horrible Bosses instantly brings to mind that 1980 workplace comedy 9 to 5, which also involved three fed-up employees (Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton) hatching a plan to teach their employer (Dabney Coleman) a lesson outside of work hours. Of course, in that movie, the women weren't interesting in actually killing their boss. They just wanted to convince him to mind his manners and not be such a, and I quote Ms. Fonda here, "sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot." Clearly we live in more violent times, because for Nick (Bateman), Dale (Day) and Kurt (Sudeikis), the only obvious solution to improving their respective work situations is to off the person in charge. In Nick's case, that person is Dave Harken (Kevin Spacey), an asshole of the first degree who forces his underling to work around the clock all the while dangling a nonexistent promotion in front of him. Dental assistant Dale, meanwhile, is subjected to regular degradation and harassment by sexually ravenous dentist Dr. Julia Harris (Jennifer Aniston). Finally, Kurt has to follow the increasingly insane orders of paranoid cokehead Bobby Pellitt (Colin Farrell), whose primary business plan is to sell the company and retire to a private island where he can snort that magical white powder off the chests of bikini-clad babes.

Having casually hatched their murder plot over a couple of beers, the trio are uncertain of exactly how to proceed. So they seek the counsel of an expert -- or, at least, someone that calls himself an expert -- one Mr. Motherfucker Jones (Jamie Foxx, handily winning this year's award for Best Character Name). In his infinite wisdom, Motherfucker advises them to gather intel on their targets and then divide the killings between them, making sure that no employee kills his own boss. This leads to the movie's funniest sequence, in which the guys break into Pellitt and Harken's houses to collect information and almost wreck both places instead. Their bumbling also inadvertently sets in motion events that lead one of the bosses to complete a hit for them. At that point, they abandon plans to off the surviving supervisors and instead focus on keeping their asses out of jail for a crime they planned to -- but didn't actually -- commit.

As previously mentioned, the actors are the primary reason why Horrible Bosses doesn't completely collapse on itself despite the lack of a strong narrative foundation. None of the leads bother playing characters per se, instead mostly falling back on their standard, but reliable comic personas -- sarcastic and deadpan for Bateman, manic and spazzy for Day and jovial and goofy for Sudeikis. A blooper reel that plays over the closing credits reveals how much of their dialogue they invented on the spot, as well as the fun they had mixing it up together. That sense of fun mostly comes through in the finished product. The folks playing the bosses seem to be enjoying themselves as well, with Spacey pushing his inherent smugness far past the legal limit while Farrell (his handsome features obscured by ugly facial hair and a fake comb-over) gleefully chews the scenery like an off-the-wagon refugee from Celebrity Rehab. Aniston also gets off a few good one-liners as the predatory dentist, but she has the misfortune of being trapped in the film's most ill-conceived storyline that's far less funny in execution than it probably was in the pitch session. Call me old-fashioned, but it's hard to laugh at a scene where a character screams "Rape! Rape!" while being aggressively felt up against his will. Fortunately, that's about as horrible as the otherwise agreeable Horrible Bosses gets.

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