Boss, The (DVD)

Stars: Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Bell, Peter Dinklage, Tyler Labine, Ella Anderson, Mary Sohn, Kathy Bates, Margo Martindale

Director: Ben Falcone

Alas for a slimmed-down and hot-looking McCarthy, The Boss is a bust. Having shed several stone by the look of it, the motormouth comedienne looks scarily like Hillary Clinton, playing an equally dislikeable business magnate, Michelle Darnell, who, at the peak of her career, finds herself jailed for five months for insider trading, thanks to the machinations of her diminutive nemesis Ron/Renault (Dinklage), a former lover.

Amazed not to find a limousine waiting for on her release, Michelle bunks up with her former assistant Claire (a game performance by Bell) and her sub-teen daughter Rachel (Anderson): she shows the kid Texas Chain Saw Massacre when babysitting.

But Claire bakes a mean chocolate brownie, and soon the great white shark of the business world has turned this talent into a cottage industry, hijacking Rachel's 'Dandelions' (sort of Girl Guides) group to help with the initial sales boost.

None of these weak plot devices, nor what follows, are remotely believable, and McCarthy's usual schtick of sexual and bodily function jokes sits ill-at-ease on this occasion, under the flatness of real-life hubby Falcone's direction, which fatally lacks fizz.

It's just passably entertaining, but McCarthy really needs something more at this stage of her career.

David Quinlan

USA 2016. UK Distributor: Universal . Colour by efilm.
95 minutes. Not widescreen. UK certificate: 15.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 1, Violence/Horror 1, Drugs 0, Swearing 3.

Review date: 16 Oct 2016