Review: Bad Teacher

Cameron Diaz stars as a teacher whose dreams of quitting teaching and marrying a rich man go kaput, and so she goes back to teaching the sixth grade. Actually, teaching would suggest something involving effort, interest, and aptitude, qualities that Diaz doesn’t seem to possess. Instead, she just shows movies about teaching (“Stand and Deliver”, “Lean on Me”, “Dangerous Minds”, etc), whilst barely even pretending to give a crap. She also gets drunk and high, at various points. An over-eager rival teacher named Amy Squirrel (Lucy Punch) has Diaz’s number very quickly, but no one listens to her, including the putz principal (John Michael Higgins). Justin Timberlake plays a new, high-fiving, do-gooder substitute teacher whom Diaz attempts to get her claws into when she  notices him wearing an expensive watch. Meanwhile, she also decides that her quest to find a rich man requires her to get a boob job (Why not find a time machine to take Diaz back to 1994’s “The Mask”?). Jason Segel plays the easygoing (if glib) gym teacher who clearly has a thing for Diaz, but she’s not interested in a simple gym teacher. Eric Stonestreet plays Diaz’s oddball roommate (who somehow works at a gym- think about that, people), David Paymer is a titty doctor, and Thomas Lennon is a dweeb in charge of school exam papers whom Diaz attempts to seduce when she finds out about a bonus for the teacher whose class gets the best score.

Although it is not really related to “Bad Santa”, this 2011 black comedy from director Jake Kasdan (“Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story”) would dearly like to be the female equivalent of “Bad Santa”. Unfortunately, it’s not funny, it’s not clever, and the lead character is unrealistic and has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. The similarity in the title and general content of the two films makes it hard not to compare them, and this one comes off much worse for it. The lead character played by a miscast Cameron Diaz (sorry, but she’s just too nice and sunny for the role, even considering “Being John Malkovich”) just doesn’t convince. With Billy Bob Thornton, his being a shopping mall Santa was merely a way of getting inside so he could rob the joint. Why would the heartless, self-absorbed, and thoroughly unpleasant character played by Diaz ever want to become a teacher let alone be allowed to do so for so long? She never shows at any point in the film, a single shred of aptitude or interest in the profession whatsoever. I just didn’t buy it. Sure, I could buy having her just play movies for maybe a couple of weeks, but by the time she starts showing “Scream”, the jig would most certainly be up. Unfortunately, because just about everyone else in the film is a grotesquely cartoonish buffoon, she gets away with it for so long. I know it’s a comedy, but even comedies need to have some internal logic, surely. Then again, we’re talking about a character who thinks she needs breast implants to attract a man, despite showing no signs of insecurity or poor self image at any other point in the film. Not to mention she’s played by Cameron Freakin’ Diaz. Am I the only one who thinks that makes no sense at all?.

Chief amongst the grotesqueries (Spell Check says grotesqueries isn’t a word, but I promptly changed its opinion on that) on display here is the (forgive me) seriously unfortunate-looking (best euphemism I could come up with) Lucy Punch as the too-cute named Amy Squirrel (I did rather like John Michael Higgins’ character name, though. Wally Snur. It seems so apt). This character and performance is the most ghastly overdone piece of mugging and caricature I’ve had the displeasure of seeing since...Lucy Punch in “Dinner for Schmucks”. She’s so odd-looking and off-putting that it made my skin crawl with her every appearance in the film. She’s not funny and she’s on screen way too often. Continuing the trend of characters I had zero sympathy for, Justin Timberlake seems similarly odd for its own sake as a doofus substitute teacher. Timberlake plays him in such a phony, “SNL” sketch kinda way I kept expecting him to turn out to be Diaz’s male counterpart, and whilst he did end up exhibiting some douchy tendencies (did we really need the dry humping? Or the cum-stained jeans?), the film doesn’t quite go in that direction, making me wondering what point screenwriters Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg (who had previously collaborated on “Year One”) were trying to make.

Actually, that’s one of my biggest issues with the film overall: What’s the point of it all? The lead character doesn’t learn anything or change, the other characters don’t learn anything or change, nor does the audience. So what was the point of it all? At least with “Bad Santa”, the Thornton character started to show glimpses of humanity, whilst still remaining the same, foul-mouthed drunken tool. He was also amazingly convincing in the role, whereas I said earlier, Diaz is too sweet-natured for this kind of role.

Of the cast, Jason Segel probably comes off best, by virtue of being the most ‘normal’ guy in the film. But considering he’s a pot-smoker with a romantic inclination for the Diaz character, he’s still not especially likeable to me. But at least Segel gets to give a comparatively restrained, largely caricature-free performance. Unfortunately, all that does is highlight just how unlikely and unsatisfactory the film’s supposedly happy ending is. Diaz, for her part isn’t even grotesque enough (she’s just a regular bitch, really) nor likeable enough to care one way or the other. She’s mean, but she’s also kinda boring. However, the happy ending still isn’t earned in any conventional or ironic way because no one here really even has a character arc to speak of.

I’m afraid that aside from one or two chuckles (that I don’t even remember the specifics of), the only thing I can say in this film’s favour is that the hard rock/metal soundtrack is really good, with particularly apt use of Whitesnake’s unofficial attempt at being Led Zeppelin, “Still of the Night” during a car wash sequence. Clever.

Sorry, this was a really unpleasant and dull experience for me. Perhaps it’s your kind of film, but I’d rather re-watch “Bad Santa”. At least that film was well-written, well-cast, and its un-PC humour was genuinely funny instead of just mean and off-putting. This one’s not even especially raunchy (Cameron Diaz keeps it all covered), just mean-spirited and crude for the sake of it, which isn’t the same thing. Hell, I thought there was more (unintentional) bad taste delivered by Billy Crystal at this year’s Oscars when a clip of him playing Sammy Davis Jr. in blackface was followed awkwardly by a clip from “The Help” (Seriously, that was so wrong). It’s spared an awful rating because, any film with Tommy Tutone’s one-hit wonder “867-5309 (Jenny)” can’t be that awful. Damn it, the song’s stuck in my head now...

Rating: C