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Bad Teacher
| Released |
17 June 2011 |
| Director |
Jake Kasdan |
Starring
|
Cameron Diaz, Justin Timberlake, Jason Segel, Lucy Punch, John Michael Higgins |
| Writer(s) |
Gene Stupnitsky, Lee Eisenberg |
| Producer(s) |
Jimmy Miller, David Householter |
| Origin |
United States |
| Running Time |
92 minutes |
| Genre |
Comedy |
| Rating |
16 |
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Bad Cameron!
So, can Cameron Diaz play a baddie? Since she got her break in The Mask and really became a star with There’s Something About Mary, Diaz has been one of America’s sweethearts. But there is a time limit to that job and now that she’s nearly forty years old, she knows herself that she needs to add a bit more range to her repertoire to keep her career going. She has tried to play dark roles in the past in the likes of Any Given Sunday and Gangs of New York but she didn’t really convince. Will Bad Teacher change this perception?
Diaz plays Elizabeth, who’s slumming it as a substitute teacher, while planning her marriage to her rich fiancé. However, her fiancé’s mother smells her out for the gold-digger that she is and she gets dumped, forcing her to return to teaching for the next semester. A heavy drinker and drug-user, Elizabeth is also incredibly lazy as a teacher, preferring to show her class DVDs all day instead of doing any actual work. Things look up though when Scott (Justin Timberlake) arrives to work as a substitute teacher. He’s not only good-looking, he’s rich as well, but she faces competition from a rival teacher Amy (Lucy Punch).
Elizabeth convinces herself that the only way she can win Scott is by getting a breast enhancement operation, but the procedure costs ten thousand dollars. So she sets about getting the money, using any means necessary to do so. Meanwhile she’s fighting off advances from the gym teacher Russell (Jason Segel) who has the hots for her, despite seeing her for what she is.
I suppose the basic concept for this comes from Bad Santa, the Billy Bob Thornton film about an alcoholic thief who posed as a department store Santa Claus. That film did at least have some nasty, crude laughs but this effort is a disappointment on that front. It simply doesn’t have the dark heart it needs to be truly funny.
American films seem to have a problem with featuring a true anti-hero. They’ve always got to redeem them at the end, even Bad Santa didn’t follow through, insisting on giving the character a sentimental finale. Diaz’s Elizabeth is a bit of a bitch sure, but she’s not really that bad. Sure, she’s lazy and selfish but anyone who’s been through the public school system in any country you can mention can probably think of worse real life examples.
Diaz tries her best with the role, giving it her all, but it’s a cardboard cut-out character with no depth. English actress Lucy Punch isn’t bad as her love rival but Jason Segel phones in the same performance he’s given in his last ten films. The biggest disaster is Justin Timberlake, Diaz’s real-life ex, who sacrifices any credibility his role in The Social Network gave him with a horribly misjudged performance that’s just plain irritating. The always reliable John Michael Higgins is on good form as the Dolphin-obsessed headmaster but sadly he is hardly in it.
Director Jake Kasdan, who made the reasonably amusing Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, tries to make something of it but again his heart doesn’t seem to be in it either. The second half of the film feels very rushed as various plotlines are hurriedly tidied up.
Overall this film just isn’t funny enough and so it’s back to the drawing board for the lovely Miss Diaz.
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Jim O’Connor |
