Mr. Movie: There’s not much to like in ‘Like a Boss’

“Like a Boss” is awful. However, outside of six pretty good performances, there is one other positive. At least it’s not a romantic comedy. Sort of. Can you slide best besties into that category?

The plot does follow the rom-com formula. Whatever or however you classify this one doesn’t really matter. The movie is a total bomb.

Best friends from grade school start a makeup and beauty business. Mia and Mel — or is it Mel and Mia? I can’t remember. It got pretty hard to care about anything in the plot from the outset.

Tiffany Haddish is the perfect fit for the charismatic Mia. She’s smart and sassy and sometimes irresponsible. Her bestie is Rose Byrne’s Mel. She’s quiet, efficient, a good manager and the perfect fulcrum for the comedy as the calm at the center of Mia’s storm and that of Salma Hayek’s Claire Luna.

People love Mel and Mia’s — or is it Mia and Mel’s? — makeup but they just aren’t selling enough product.

Salvation arrives in the form of Luna. She’s a bazillionaire who specializes in fashion stuff and wants to buy into Mel and Mia’s business. Mel wants to and Mia doesn’t. With a financial grim reaper awaiting them, they have no choice and agree to sell.

Hayek has fun bouncing between pushy, plotting and scheming and pouty. Luna is a woman who knows how to get her way. So selling to her is a big mistake.

Not as big a mistake as making this movie but close.

As pointed out earlier, this is totally predictable from the beginning and the only fun in the film are three actresses having a blast with their characters and, though they’re not in the film all that much, Jennifer Coolidge, Billy Porter and Karan Soni have fun with theirs.

The most fun comes from Porter who has an exit scene that had me howling. Too bad director Miguel Arteta (“Beatriz at Dinner,” “Cedar Rapids,” “The Good Girl”) and his two novice writers, Sam Pitman and Adam Cole-Kelly, didn’t spend more time on Porter and Coolidge. Their characters are much more interesting than the leading ladies.

In other words, for a movie about makeup you’d think they’d make up a much better movie.

▪ Rated R for mature themes and language. It’s playing at the Fairchild Cinemas Pasco and Queensgate 12s and at the Fairchild Cinemas Southgate 10, at the AMC Classic Kennewick 12 and at Walla Walla Grand Cinemas.

▪ Rating: 2 out of 5

This story was originally published January 9, 2020 at 5:47 PM with the headline "Mr. Movie: There’s not much to like in ‘Like a Boss’."