Melissa McCarthy has to stop starring in her husband’s films. Tammy director Ben Falcone reunites with the mother of his two children for The Boss, another unfunny comedy that further tarnishes McCarthy’s reputation.

The Boss actually boasts a decent premise: a conceited but highly popular businesswoman and motivational speaker is sent to prison a la Martha Stewart, and she must rebuild her business empire from scratch once released. McCarthy plays the self-centered, selfish and ignorantly bull-in-a-china-shop Michelle Darnell.

Michelle Darnell is another one of McCarthy’s characters not directed by Paul Feig that we would be better off forgetting.

The Boss is a wholly unfunny affair, nearly two hours of jokes and McCarthy acting bitchy that amounts to very little. Once again, Falcone appears to rely heavily on his wife’s charisma and her ability to elevate material, and once again he proves that McCarthy is capable of only so much. The screenplay, written by Falcone, McCarthy and Steve Mallory, just isn’t funny.

The strange thing is that while I actually laughed at Tammy, The Boss isn’t nearly as depressing or disparaging. The Boss is watchable; even though it’s a comedy that doesn’t make you laugh, even though I wouldn’t call it entertaining, it oddly isn’t the disastrously painful affair I was expecting.

For some reason, though, I don’t think Universal will be putting “it isn’t the disastrously painful affair I was expecting” in its promotional materials. The Boss isn’t the most terrible thing that has ever graced the silver screen (see McCarthy’s Identity Thief, or don’t, for one such example), but it’s another Melissa McCarthy movie that’s worth skipping.

Review by Erik Samdahl unless otherwise indicated.