My Boss’ Daughter

An introverted office worker can’t seem to approach either his boss for a new position or his daughter for a date, until the one day that he works up the courage to speak to her and mistakenly accepts an invitation to house-sit their abode instead. Needless to say, many strange and goofed-up folk drop by the house that night and chaos (and supposed comedy) ensues.

They say that the end of August/beginning of September is the time when studios basically “dump” the movies that they think most suck on their slate (why Sony/Columbia didn’t wait in GIGLI’s case, is beyond me) and here’s a great example of just that. Not only does this film have very little to start off with (a paper-thin plot about a guy trying to score with his boss’ daughter), but it’s compounded with almost no humor whatsoever, a circumstance so over-the-top that anyone with any ounce of logic floating through their brain matter would question extensively and probably the saddest of all, an interesting cast of actors thrown into a screenplay worth spit. It’s the kind of movie that might be described by some as a “comedy of errors”, with the emphasis placed more on the word “errors”, than “comedy”. In fact, I like Ashton Kutcher, but even he couldn’t save this dud from dying a slow death by weak execution all around. He and his buddy Jon Abrahams start the film off on the right foot, but once he disappears (for the rest of the movie!), things go downhill as one moronic character after another step into Kutcher’s house-sitting gig and attempt to strike up the ha-has. Unfortunately for us, the sight of Michael Madsen pissing all over the house is the highlight of that reel. Molly Shannon is also tossed in there, and even though I dig her exaggerated nature most of the time, she couldn’t clean the shit off this one either. In fact, this is not so much of a “movie” as it is set pieces of people screaming, falling, breaking stuff and screaming some more.

If the laughs were there, I wouldn’t have minded the idiocies so much (the daughter is in the house half the time and she apparently doesn’t notice anything that’s going on?), but they’re not and I ultimately just didn’t laugh much or believe in anyone or anything. What’s even stupider is that they actually try to stick a serious “romantic” angle in there to boot. C’mon guys…one minute you have an owl sniffing cocaine out of a toilet and Andy Richter baring his big, fat ass, and the next you want us to believe that this guy and girl are somehow “falling” for one another? Gimme a break! And am I the only one who thinks that Tara Reid is hot as hell, but can’t act for her life? This girl has “one look” (a la ZOOLANDER) and she sticks to it no matter what film she’s in. Her philosophy of acting seems to be to darken her tan. But I digress. The movie also feels like it’s been in the can for years with tired O.J. jokes, handicap stuff a la Farrelly brothers and pratfalls galore. Hardee-har-har. Thankfully, Carmen Electra makes an appearance in various hot outfits and even offers a gratuitous slow-motion wet t-shirt shot (thank you!) Terence Stamp is also great as the asshole boss/dad, but overall, despite the quick 85-minute runtime, a couple of chuckles and fun actors, I sat stone-faced through most of this film, actually felt like walking out on a couple of occasions and kept wondering how anyone could think this movie would work for any type of audience (which might actually explain the late August release). Then again, like I always say…humor is subjective and if you’re drunk with your honey one night, beer in one hand and an “I don’t give a shit” attitude in the other, maybe some of these gags will do it for you. PS: In this day and age, when a studio doesn’t even bother to slap a couple of grand into creating a website for their movie…you know there ain’t much faith behind it.

(c) 2021 Berge Garabedian