'Bad Teacher' Movie Review

Bad Teacher is no Bad Santa. Although they're both R-rated comedies about people behaving badly, Bad Santa was fearless in taking the comedy way beyond what's socially acceptable, while Bad Teacher nudges that line a few time but ultimately jerks back as though that fence is electrified. If screenwriters Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg (The Office, Year One) had only pushed the comedy a little further, had only taken full advantage of the R rating, Bad Teacher might have been the perfect summer comedy. As it is, it's just a little too tame. It's a great idea, however the execution's not very impressive.

Cameron Diaz leads the raunchy comedy and she's unafraid to play an unsympathetic, immature, pot-smoking teacher with a filthy mouth and screwed up values. Diaz absolutely goes there and is fully committed to the character; the problem being the character's just so unappealing that it's difficult to want to sit through class with her.

Elizabeth (Diaz) thinks the world is her oyster. The semester's over and she's just a few weeks away from marrying a wealthy guy and leading a life of leisure. However, those plans for kicking back and living off her new hubby are squashed when her fiancee's mom puts the kibosh on the wedding plans. Forced out of her now ex-boyfriend's luxurious home, Elizabeth's only choice is to rent an apartment with a complete stranger she met online who was also in need of a cheap place to stay.

So, back to work she goes. Elizabeth was a slug of a teacher on her best days, but now she's totally pissed off and unmotivated. Not helping matters any is the presence of super bubbly, perennial teacher of the year candidate, the nutty Amy Squirrel (Lucy Punch). While Amy is obsessed with teaching, Elizabeth's approach to work is to show movies so she can sleep. The only thing that motivates Elizabeth into action is the thought of landing a man and living off his money. But in order to more fully compete in the dating game, Elizabeth thinks she needs a boob job but that takes money - which she doesn't have. She schemes, she plots, she steals, with her eye constantly on the prize: bigger breasts = a bigger bank account.

As for that prize, potential wealthy hubby material wanders into her school in the form of a substitute teacher who's the heir to a watch company. Scott Delacorte (Justin Timberlake) is a geeky goody two-shoes without much of a personality, but he has money so Elizabeth's interested. Amy's also interested which further fuels the animosity between the two teachers. Can Elizabeth earn the $9000 needed for new breasts? Will Scott fall for the superficial Elizabeth or the bordering on obnoxious Amy? And will gym teacher Russell Gettis (Jason Segel) ever get Elizabeth to go out on a date? And, most importantly, do we care about any of this? Although there are a few good laughs, the answer's not really.

Diaz is terrific and obviously was quite willing to do whatever it took to find the funniest approach to each scene. Unfortunately, there's just not quite enough of an edge to Elizabeth to make the character work. Lucy Punch provides a manic energy to the film, Timberlake's charming and delivers yet another performance that shows he's one of the few singers who has demonstrated he deserves to be considered a real film actor, and The Office's Phyllis Smith is a scene-stealer who made the absolute most out of her limited screen time. For the first half of the film, How I Met Your Mother star Jason Segel is only in the picture very sporadically, for a minute or two at a time. Thankfully, he's more involved in the second half, and his flirting bits with Diaz provide the film's funniest moments.

Diaz has it in her to take the character darker, and Bad Teacher would have earned a higher grade had the character been written even more raw. Director Jake Kasdan and the writers try to temper the raunchiness just when the story needs that punch. When your lead character is basically unlikable, why not go ahead and push the comedy as far can since you're not risking alienating the audience? And as with Your Highness, Bad Teacher relies too much on the characters' potty mouths to elicit jokes; there are only so many times you can rely on f-bombs to get a laugh. Whenever the dialogue needs to be spiced up, it's with the use of R-rated language. And, to a point, that's okay, but Bad Teacher leans on it as a crutch to prop up the comedy too often.

There's also a feeling of incompleteness to some of the scenes, an almost splicing together of random comic bits to create a feature film feel to Bad Teacher. The story goes this way and that, often without any reason or payoff.

Bad Teacher isn't completely 'bad' and that's a shame. If only Kasdan and company had gone for it with the same wild abandon Diaz did in tackling the role, Bad Teacher would have earned a passing grade. As it is, Bad Teacher's report card has to be marked with a C-.

GRADE: C-

Bad Teacher was directed by Jake Kasdan and is rated R for sexual content, nudity, language and some drug use.

Theatrical Release: June 24, 2011