Bad Teacher (2011)

Content by Tony Macklin. Originally published on June 27, 2011 @ tonymacklin.net.

Bad Teacher should be held back for bad comedy.

It's probably better just to see the previews than see the entire tired movie in a theater. It's the kind of movie that after the first ten minutes, one decides whether to leave or stay hoping for one or two chuckles that might come.

Some people try for an A. The makers of Bad Teacher simply want to pass. They sit at the back of the theater hoping they don't get called on, because they have nothing to add.

They've gotten through depending on Cliff Notes for comedy.

Bad Teacher has a great title and a good cast, but the actors have to try to enliven dull characters and a thin, labored plot.

Elizabeth Halsey (Cameron Diaz) is the teacher as gold digger. She's a free spirit, if a gold digger can be a free spirit.

She returns to teaching after being dropped by her rich fiance. She's now "teaching" to raise money to get a boob job, which she thinks will enable her to land some wealthy man somewhere.

One wonders how she got the job teaching in the first place; wasn't there a bar down the street?

At the school she faces a faculty adversary (Lucy Punch), an impressionable jerk (Justin Timberlake), and an earnest gym teacher (Jason Segel).

Bad Teacher is like a lazy tv sitcom. Screenwriters Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky (I imagine his colleagues call him "Stup") have no idea about sustaining comedy or character. Writing a movie is not like a half-hour skit for Steve Carrell.

Stup and Eisenberg dredge up a fart joke, an erection joke, and interminable mammary discussions. If only they'd been breast-fed, maybe they could have moved on to toilet training.

They also have two dim-witted characters both say that their favorite book is Eat, Pray, Love. Years ago it would have been Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Titles change; triteness remains the same.

Most of the actors stumble down the halls looking for some consistency.

Two actresses have major tv sitcom backgrounds. Phyllis Smith (The Office) is credible as the needy teacher, but Lucy Punch has a thankless role. On tv she was in The Class. Boy, was the casting director sharp.

Jason Segel and Phyllis Smith are the only actors who are natural. The others falter.

Cameron Diaz tries to bring vitality to a sludgy role. She's trying to connect the dots in a movie that is spatter.

Director Jake Kasdan, whose father Lawrence is talented, obviously wasn't home schooled.

One of the major motivations for Elizabeth's character is to get a boob job.

Bad Teacher turns out to be a monumental boob job.