Danish director Lars von Trier can usually be relied upon for something unorthodox and the surprise with The Boss of it all, is that this is a fairly straightforward comedy although Trier still can't resist a few play-making tricks which are arguably to the detriment of the comedy.

To the plot. An actor (Jens Albinus) gets hired to do a rather unusual job: he's asked to play the invisible boss of a Danish IT company, who comes back to the office to try and pull off a deal with an Icelandic businessman.

The Actor takes on the job reluctantly and soon finds the role harder than he could imagine as he has to persuade staff that he really was the person they previously communicated with. He doesn't realise that one female member of staff thinks marriage is on the cards, there's the sex-mad lady who merely offers herself across a desk having always wanted to 'have the boss' and then there are recurring jokes that wear thin such as the aggressive male who often wants to physically attack him.

It's uneven fare. One suspects it may go down better in Scandinavia where in-jokes between the Icelanders and the Danish would be better understood, and without that, you end up wanting to like the film as much as you can, merely because of the celebrated talent of the director, but left feeling it doesn't always come off.