Have you ever gone to a movie and just said; ‘Ehh, not bad’? That sums up my feelings for the movie Bad Teacher. You get exactly what the trailers prepare you for; a raunchy ‘fish out of water’ comedy. This film tries to follow the Judd Apatow formula for comedies which is shock humor overlying a sweet and innocent story. The director, Jake Kasdon, doesn’t succeed but neither does he fail. This is an entertaining R-rated comedy that I can’t say I didn’t enjoy, but neither can I say its’ a ‘must see’.
Cameron Diaz has proven her comedic chops and does a good job playing Elizabeth Halsey, a gold-digging lazy teacher who took a job for “all the right reasons”, namely short days with summers and all holidays off. Justin Timberlake plays Scott Delacorte, the substitute teacher who comes from family money and catches Elizabeth’s gold digging eye. I’m going to take a slight detour here to discuss Justin Timberlake. Here is a guy whose childhood was a recipe for an adult disaster. Most child stars with his boy band background end up in jail and/or rehab or hosting lip syncing shows for a season on VH1. Justin has done a great job transitioning, not only to an adult celebrity, but a multi-versatile one as well. You want to disrespect him, but he doesn’t let you. Great performances in the Social Network and Alpha Dog show his ability, plus comedic performances like this one in Bad Teacher, shows that he’s versatile. I’m reluctantly impressed with him as a performer.
Back to the movie; Elizabeth decides the only way she can land Scott or any other rich husband is with breast implants. Unfortunately, on a teacher’s salary, this poses a large problem. When she learns that there is a large cash prize for the teacher whose students score the highest in the State exams, she suddenly has a fire lit under her and decides to start teaching instead of showing movies everyday. The only problem is that the uber goody two-shoes teacher Amy Squirrel (played with perfect annoyance by Lucy Punch), whose classroom is across the hall from Elizabeth, will stop at nothing to keep her from winning or getting Scott who she also has her eye on. Jason Segal plays the gym teacher Russell Gettis, who is very drawn to Elizabeth despite her dismissal of him as not being socially worthy of her. Segal always plays this type of generic non-threatening laid back guy in most of the comedies he is in.
The movie has some good laughs and enough edge for people who like R-rated movies. It was fun to see the real life exes Diaz and Timberlake performing together. Justin captures the nerdy rich guy comedically enough and his ego is in check enough that he doesn’t feel the need to show off his musical talent during an embarrassing serenade. Diaz is still sexy and fun and you can tell she reveled in this role. She has one of the rare gifts to know she is attractive, but doesn’t appear to have an ego about it (or maybe i’m still idolizing her character from ‘Something About Mary’). There are lot of familiar comedic faces in this movie and it is worth going to see if you’re in the mood.
It’s not a film I will be seeing again, but i don’t feel like a wasted my time or money either.
I rate this film **1/2 stars
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