ScreenRant
10 Female Buddy Comedies Better Than “Like A Boss,” According to Rotten Tomatoes
BY ROCCO THOMPSON
APR 19, 2020
Buddy comedies should be a sure thing: take two beloved stars, match them up for comic hijinks, and strike box-office gold. But it’s rarely that simple, and the latest inductee to the bad buddy comedy hall of fame is this years Like A Boss starring Tiffany Haddish and Rose Byrne.
This should-have-been surefire hit, but it failed to connect with critics and is sitting on a wan 20% on the Tomatometer.
Here are ten female-led buddy pictures that were better received—if you can believe it!
10. Outrageous Fortune (52%)
Brassy aspiring actress Sandy Borzinsky (Bette Midler) and spoiled wannabe star Lauren Ames (Shelley Long) meet in an acting class and immediately butt heads. To make matters worse, the two discover they’re dating the same man (Peter Coyote). But, before they can grill him, he dies in a suspicious explosion. Unconvinced that he’s dead, the adversaries team up to find him and are soon being pursued by spies and contending with the lies of a man who wasn’t who he pretended to be.
Though its increasingly ludicrous plot twists eventually start to grate, Outrageous Fortune features two of the 80s most bankable comedic stars at their best.
9. Romy And Michele’s High School Reunion (72%)
Ashamed by their notable lack of adult accomplishments, Romy (Mira Sorvino) and Michele (Lisa Kudrow) decide to invent different lives and fancy careers to impress former classmates at their ten-year high school reunion.
Something of a cult classic—especially among queer viewers—Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion is a buddy comedy with real heart under all the fluff.
8. The Banger Sisters (48%)
Two past-their-prime groupies (Goldie Hawn and Susan Sarandon), famously known as “The Banger Sisters” during the glory days of rock n’ roll, have lost touch. Decades past their 60s heyday, the women decide to meet up and rekindle the thrill of their former lives, but is their nostalgia for the past keeping them from living in the present?
Though no one with a pulse is immune to the combined charms of Hawn and Sarandon, The Banger Sisters‘ lame duck script doesn’t do enough digging to make good on its solid premise.
7. The Sweetest Thing (27%)
Christina Walters (Cameron Diaz) has always avoided getting too emotionally involved until she unexpectedly meets Peter (Thomas Jane), a handsome stranger who disappears as fast as he came into her life. Determined that he must be “the one,” Christina and her best friend Courtney (Christina Applegate) take to the road to track him down and prove—or disprove—love at first sight.
More of a string of hit-or-miss gags—and, in the case of the “You’re Too Big To Fit In Here” musical number, both?—than a compelling road comedy, The Sweetest Thing is a pleasant enough diversion should you run across it on cable.
6. Connie And Carla (44%)
Hapless lounge singers Connie (Nia Vardalos) and Carla (Toni Collette) must abandon their airport cabaret act when they witness a murder. Hightailing it to Los Angeles, they get a taste of the city’s drag queen and decide to disguise themselves as female impersonators to hide out from the killers and grab the success that’s always eluded them.
This unfairly maligned reworking of Some Like It Hot has it all, from perfectly-matched leads to gleeful gay comedy—in a time when such things were still a bit taboo—and musical numbers that hit the sweet spot between earnestness and cheek.
5. The Heat (65%)
Sarah Ashburn (Sandra Bullock) is one of the FBI’s most-decorated and least-liked special agents. Similarly, foul-mouthed, cantankerous Detective Shannon Mullins (Melissa McCarthy), can’t get any respect from the Boston police department. When these two odd ducks are teamed together to track down a drug lord, they discover that sometimes you have to rely on others.
Though The Heat seems to have fallen off the cultural radar, it’s easily one of the most gut-bustlingly hilarious movies of the 2010s, thanks in large part to the almost supernatural comic chemistry of Bullock and McCarthy.
4. The Other Woman (25%)
When New York lawyer Carly Whitten (Cameron Diaz) falls for Mark King (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), he seems almost too good to be true. That’s because he is, and after a surprise visit to Mark’s home, Carly realizes that he’s already married to his doting housewife, Kate (Leslie Mann). United in anger, Carly and Kate become fast friends, and, when a third woman (Kate Upton) enters the picture, the three join forces to make their cheating lover’s life a living hell.
Diaz and Mann feel like firecrackers who just can’t spark together in this sloppy and strident revenge comedy.
3. Bad Moms (58%)
Amy (Mila Kunis) has it all—a great partner, smart kids, a comfortable suburban home, and a successful career—but she’s worn thin by the responsibilities of motherhood. When she finds that her husband has been engaged in an illicit romance with a webcam girl, she kicks him out and decides to take her life back.
The combined efforts of Kunis and co-stars Kathryn Hahn and Kristen Bell help lift Bad Moms’ saggier bits, elevating a film made from a so-so script into something way more fun than it otherwise would have been. But, steer clear of that rushed sequel!
2. Rough Night (44%)
When her bachelorette party is cut short by the accidental death of a male stripper, Jess (Scarlett Johansson) and her best friends scramble to cover it up.
It’s shameful that this Bridesmaids-style comedy assembled from the picked-over remains of The Hangover and Weekend at Bernie’s would gather some of the brightest talents of the day (including Kate McKinnon, Zoë Kravitz, Ilana Glazer, and Jillian Bell), just to make them look so profoundly unfunny.
1. Book Club (54%)
Four older women’s lives are shaken up when they decide to read the infamously smutty “50 Shades of Grey” as their book club pick. The scandalous novel doesn’t just rekindle their romantic lives, but it also inspires them to make whatever chapters they have left in them the best ones yet
With Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen, and Mary Steenburgen at the forefront, this late-life comedy could fall flat on its face and stay remain watchable. Fortunately, it doesn’t.
