BAD TEACHER (2011)

Genre: Comedy
Director: Jake Kasdan
Cast: Cameron Diaz, Justin Timberlake, Jason Segel, John Michael Higgins, Lucy Punch, Molly Shannon, Eric Stonestreet
RunTime: 1 hr 32 mins
Released By: Sony Pictures Releasing International
Rating: M18 (Some Sexual Scenes and Drug Use)
Official Website: http://www.areyouabadteacher.com/

Opening Day: 25 August 2011

Synopsis: Some teachers just don't give an F. For example, there's Elizabeth (Cameron Diaz). She's foul-mouthed, ruthless, and inappropriate. She drinks, she gets high, and she can't wait to marry her meal ticket and get out of her bogus day job. When she's dumped by her fiance, she sets her plan in motion to win over a rich, handsome substitute (Justin Timberlake) - competing for his affections with an overly energetic colleague, Amy (Lucy Punch). When Elizabeth also finds herself fighting off the advances of a sarcastic, irreverent gym teacher (Jason Segel), the consequences of her wild and outrageous schemes give her students, her coworkers, and even herself an education like no other.

Movie Review:

It's hard to like a movie if you hate the protagonist. And this movie is a prime example, judging by the bad reviews. However, I was rather entertained by the mouthful of venom spewed by the self-centred, potty-mouth and money-grubbing Cameron Diaz.

Diaz, who is mostly typecast as the airy va-va-voom romantic lead or the take-charge action heroine, gamely plays the role of devil-may-care junior high teacher, Elizabeth Halsey, to the hilt. She is every parent's nightmare, outrightly condoning video-watching during classes, just so she can snooze in class. And preferring to coast through her job by doing the bare minimum. Although she would gladly bare the minimum for a car wash fundraiser, so she can pocket some money. And it doesn't stop there. Every unscrupulous move she makes forwards her agenda of getting a boob job, just so she can nab a sugar daddy.

In fact, it is hard to believe any junior high school, much less the buttoned-up small-town school in the movie, would accept a morally corrupted person like Halsey. So you've been warned. Take the movie's credibility with a pinch of salt. Sit back and enjoy the movie's crude invectives and pitch black satirical tone, even if it verges on the cartoonish at times and isn't very clever. Otherwise, steer clear and you'll be better off watching the crowdpleasing model-teacher-rises-to-the-occasion movie, Dangerous Mind.

All is not rosy for Halsey. She faces tough competition from a colleague, Miss Squirrel (Lucy Punch), who in our world, would be winning the yearly teaching accolades. Much of the wicked fun comes from seeing the condescending Squirrel snooping around Halsey in a bid to discredit her.

As much as the audience would like to root for Squirrel, she comes across as one-dimensional and exasperated. Her single-minded obsession to destroy and outwit Halsey paints her in an ugly light. Compared to the petulant Halsey, she isn't any better.

Even bigger fun ensues when the two bare their claws over new geek-cute teacher, Scott Delacorte (Justin Timberlake in a preppy getup but sleepwalking role), who remains the sweetheart with a bland personality to boot.

Being an R-rated feature with two hot stars, Diaz and Timberlake, at the helm, this movie has the requisite 'raunchy' scene where the two of them get intimate together. But it is anything but raunchy. It is conceived awkwardly and adds nothing to the story. The only reaction it would elicit is a queasy one. It has to go down as the year's (or even decade's) worst sex (or is there?) scene.

Just when you think it would all end boldly in a darkly humourous manner where Halsey gets her comeuppance, the movie takes an about-turn. For all the preceding ballsy one-upmanship, it ends with a whisper. It turns all schmaltzy with an unbelieveably pat coda involving Jason Segel as an improbable suitor that feels like it belongs to a totally different movie.

The biggest cheat is not Halsey. It's the movie.

Movie Rating: 

(Entertaining but not up to mark as a black comedy)

Review by Adrian Sim