My Boss's Daughter is the sort of film that
makes sane, rational people question the future of the human
race. It disturbs me that somewhere out there is a group of
filmmakers who actually believe the material in this film is
in any small way funny.
The plot has been strip-mined from the situation
comedy films that plagued the 1980's. You know the films I'm
talking about -- the ones where a boy desperately wants to be
with a girl and the scriptwriters conspire against him with
sometimes sadistic ingenuity. More often than not, there are
sexual undercurrents running through these plots that suggest
that the writers have never actually been in a real, live sexual
encounter.
Admittedly, a few gems were produced using
this forumula, but far more often than not, this was not the
most fertile genre to begin with.
I had been about to write that the film's
humor seemed to come from a 12-year old mentality, however on
further reflection I am forced to admit that I've known plenty
of 12-year olds with a far more sophisticated sense of humor
than the writers of this film.
Ashton Kutcher stars as Tom Stansfield, a
lowly cog in the corporate machine. Tom has a crush on Lisa
Taylor (Tara Reid), who just happens to be the boss's daughter.
The problem here is that Tom is a "nice guy" who is
plagued with bad luck. For example, he finds a briefcase on
the subway which opens to reveal gay porn magazines at just
the exact moment Lisa happens to be looking over his shoulder.
Ha ha -- what brilliant comedy.
Terence Stamp plays the boss in this equation
and he spends the entire movie looking as though he wants nothing
more than to fire his agent. He wouldn't be without a measure
of justification. The boss winds up entrusting Tom to house
sit while he's out of town. Tom thinks this will be the perfect
opportunity to get closer to Lisa, but naturally, things won't
go smoothly.
It wouldn't be fair to say that everything
that could go wrong does go wrong, because frankly, nothing
that happens to Tom has even the most remote grasp of reality.
Characters wind up visiting the house for no other reason than
to break furniture and cause general havok. One character (a
completely thankless role played by Michael Madsen) serves no
other purpose other than to eventually wind up urinating all
over the boss's living room. Another character suffers from
a gaping, oozing head wound. Why? So that she can come over
and risk smearing gore all over the furniture, of course.
Contrived is really not the best word I could
use to associate with this film. However, good taste prevents
me from using anything more appropriately descriptive. Many
films attempt humor and fail, but few so miss the mark as My
Boss's Daughter. The list of films that I thoroughly despise
is a fairly short one, but this film has managed to secure a
position near the top.
What may be more depressing is that director
David Zucker has given us some tremendously funny movies in
his day, such as Airplane!, Top Secret (one of my favorites)
and the Naked Gun series. I suppose that everyone has to have
a low spot in their career, but sinking this low is almost tragic.
