Like A Boss [Blu-Ray]

Director: Miguel Arteta

Cast: Tiffany Haddish, Rose Byrne, Salma Hayek

Release Date: April 21, 2020

A Review By: Kevin Lovell

Film Rating: 3.5/10
Disc Rating: 7/10

Synopsis:

Best friends, Mia and Mel (Tiffany Haddish and Rose Byrne) are living their best lives, running their own cosmetics company until a villainous beauty mogul (Salma Hayek) conspires to steal it from under them. When her devious plan drives the besties apart, Mia and Mel learn that sticking together is the only way to turn the tables and take their company back. The beauty business is about to get ugly.

‘Like A Boss’ tells the comedic tale of ride-or-die besties Mia (Haddish) and Mel (Byrne) who while loving life and with a dream job of running their own cosmetics company together, find themselves struggling when too many kind actions and not enough clientele starts causing financial hardships. So when a powerful and glamorously rich beauty mogul (Hayek) makes the pair an offer they can’t refuse, they soon find themselves struggling to balance friendship and career while their financer continues to pit them against each other in order to benefit herself. Now these dedicated friends will have to push past the problems and deceit and find a way to reconnect in order to secure the safety of what they’ve worked so hard to build both personally and professionally.

Directed by Miguel Arteta (The Good Girl, Youth in Revolt) from a screenplay by Sam Pitman and Adam Cole-Kelly, and an initial story by Pitman, Cole-Kelly and Danielle Sanchez-Witzel, Arteta does a capable enough job at the helm of ‘Like A Boss’ doing what he can with the material and squeezing as many laughs and sappily satisfying moments from the material as possible. The film features a quite decent cast which includes Tiffany Haddish (TV’s The Last O.G.), Rose Byrne (Instant Family), Jennifer Coolidge (American Pie), Billy Porter (TV’s Pose), Ryan Hansen (Blumhouse’s Fantasy Island) and Salma Hayek (Savages) along with more, the majority offering fitting, if not somewhat over the top performances for the most part in each of their respective roles. Yet most do little to improve the film’s problems with the notable exception of Hayek who is downright hilarious in her wonderful portrayal of an evil beauty mogul.

Quite simply, ‘Like A Boss’ is a bad film for the most part. It definitely has faults aplenty such as its lack of character depth, along with a painfully predictable course of events and an almost complete lack of originality. And while in most respects it’s really not a good movie at all, it still has its charms when you can let the ridiculously bad writing and other troublesome elements go and merely appreciate the laughs and almost tongue in cheek bestie fun within. Not to mention a hilariously over the top performance by Salma Hayek who truly saves the show and is without a doubt the best part of this one thanks to her ability to nail this inane women with just enough ego and stupidity to work perfectly. As long as you don’t go in expecting any monumental events, twists or even moderate surprises (this one is as by the formula as they get when it comes to story) you might be surprised by how much guilty and shameless fun it does provide at times. If you’re seeking a quality film with depth, character growth and a smart script, then this one definitely isn’t going to be for you. If, on the other hand you want a goofy, foul-mouthed comedy that’s going to offer simplistic fun and laughs with no stress to be had over following a complex plot, then ‘Like A Boss’ just might be precisely what you’re seeking.

Overall, ‘Like A Boss’ is a pretty terrible film altogether. But even amid its numerous faults it still manages to offer some ridiculous fun and laughs, combined with a delightfully over the top performance by Hayek that alone almost it makes it worthwhile. While many folks probably won’t want to bother with this one if they aren’t already intrigued, I would likely recommend ‘Like A Boss’ to those who simply want an easygoing and fairly funny film that won’t require much focus yet delivers ample amounts of comedy and cheesy friendship moments throughout. It’s definitely not a good film, yet that’s not to say it isn’t enjoyable and quite amusing at times and anyone already even the slightest bit interested in this one will probably find themselves enjoying it if they go in expecting nothing more than some unoriginal fun and silly misadventures between friends.

VIDEO:

The Blu-ray release of ‘Like A Boss’ features a full 1080p High Definition presentation with the film’s original 2.39:1 Cinemascope Aspect Ratio. The video presentation looks great as a whole and offers a clean, richly colored and nicely detailed presentation from start to finish without any notable faults or problems to be found throughout. It holds up quite nicely even during the heavily populated and fast moving moments, never resulting in anything occurring onscreen becoming negatively affected or rendered indiscernible along the way. Overall, this is a top notch high definition video presentation from Paramount that shouldn’t disappoint fans or first time viewers in the slightest.

AUDIO:

The Blu-ray release features a 7.1 channel Dolby TrueHD soundtrack. This multichannel soundtrack does its job nicely and delivers on all fronts, providing a smooth, clean and occasionally somewhat active audio presentation throughout. While not always overly aggressive which comes with the territory for such films, it still frequently takes advantage of all seven available channels in order to send the music, along with crowd chatter, nature elements and plenty more throughout the various speakers whenever it’s appropriate, and never conflicting with any dialogue or other audio elements that might be occurring simultaneously. Overall, this is a nice Dolby TrueHD 7.1 channel soundtrack that holds up great in every way required of it and makes for a nice compliment to the onscreen laughs.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

The Blu-ray release of ‘Like A Boss’ includes a few brief extras that fans of the movie should enjoy. Included on the release are a couple of ‘Deleted Scenes’ from the film (running approximately 2 minutes in length combined), in addition to the Behind the Scenes Featurette ‘With Coworkers Like These, Who Needs Friends?’ (running approximately 6 minutes in length) which features interviews/comments with the cast and crew and some behind the scenes footage. Also included is a goofy promo video ‘”Get Some” with Ron and Greg’ (approximately 2 minutes) which features some amusing antics from the film’s male duo and competition of the two leads.

*Please note that the above images are taken from the Blu-Ray and resized. They will additionally suffer quality loss as a result of .jpg compression. Larger versions of each image can be viewed by clicking on the image. All images and content included on this Blu-Ray release are the property of their respective owners.

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Film Rating: 3.5/10
Disc Rating: 7/10

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‘Like A Boss is Now Available to Own on Blu-ray combo pack, DVD & Digital from Paramount Home Entertainment

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