Bad Teacher – Movie Review

My favorite kind of movies are comedies – not that shocking, I like to laugh. Bad Teacher looked to be one of the better comedies that had been out in a while. It stars Cameron Diaz, who I think is quite funny in general, Jason Segel, who I think everyone thinks is quite funny, and Justin Timberlake, who it might just be funny to see act. Unfortunately, Bad Teacher was merely mediocre.

I’m just going to start with saying that Lucy Punch sold this movie. She was in all the best scenes. I love Lucy Punch from her days as Holly Ellenbogen on the one-season wonder The Class, and I thought it would just merely be exciting to see her on screen. However, Punch’s character Amy Squirrel took crazy to new levels. Her motivation was being perfect, and those types always fall apart wonderfully. But she was such a winner that she was winning competitions that we didn’t know she was a part of, and Diaz’s character Elizabeth just seemed petty for picking on her at times. Amy was so committed to perfection that she got crazier and crazier just to prove that she was right, which of course backfired on her–seeing her with a megaphone and a flight attendant uniform just to welcome her class to the first day of school was just the tip of the crazy iceberg.

Justin Timberlake also surprised me in his performance of Scott Delacorte. We all saw the trailers to the movie, so we all figured that Justin Timberlake is perfect – again. Bad Teacher was unafraid to take everything we as a people have ever learned about Justin Timberlake and subvert or invert it. Everything. My favorite scene of his is when he joins Period 5, a band of teachers from John Adams Middle School that performs at this dive bar, and he gets his solo moment – it’s a singer in an acting role, there’s always a solo moment. It was a beautiful thing. Even though I did love NSYNC as a kid, I was never a big Justin fan, but now, I’m finally warming up to him.

There were so many smaller roles in the movie I absolutely loved, I could be here all day talking about every last one of them. However, I will limit myself to talking about Eric Stonestreet as Elizabeth’s roommate Kirk and Thomas Lennon as Carl Halabi. Kirk was so clueless and so unlike anything I can remember seeing Stonestreet in – though to be honest, off the top of my head that’s the one episode of Pushing Daisies and, of course, Modern Family. He was tough, irresponsible, and I’m guessing a bit of a partier – we never see any of these parties, but it’s hinted. Even though he knows nothing about his roommate, he’s still willing to help her when she asks. Thomas Lennon is just plain funny in everything, and his character was a shady state test official. While that is what it says on the tin, I still wanted to talk about him because of the scene Carl has with Kirk, which is easily one of the funnier scenes in the movie. Kirk is trying to threaten Carl as a favor to Elizabeth, but is trying to do so after injuring himself. Carl is helpful until he finds out who Kirk is and then is instantly angry. They vandalize each other’s vehicles. I cannot do the scene justice. It’s just funny.

I guess I should talk about Elizabeth, as she is the main character, but doing so will reveal the major flaw in Bad Teacher that I don’t think anyone, not even the writers, thought all the way through. Elizabeth is a horrible person. That might have been the point, but it was really difficult to root for her. In fact, I never really did. At one point, she breaks a law, and it’s about to bite her in the face. Why am I supposed to hope she gets away with it? Her good qualities are few and limited, and mostly involve her being backed into a corner before she reveals them. She only decided to change her ways for the right reason when it was way too late. The way I saw it, she picked on a perfect teacher for being perfect, she tried to hook up with another teacher because he was rich, and she refused the advances of a teacher she might really get along with because he was a teacher. She also stole from the children, broke federal laws, and did I mention that she’s a horrible person? Maybe half of it was funny, but the other half of the time, one had to wonder just why the hell we were rooting for her. You know who else was a bad teacher? Jason Segel’s character Russell Gettis. In fact, he’s the decent kind of bad, where he tolerates his job and gets high instead of chaperoning a school dance, and he’s funny. I would watch a movie that was completely about him being a bad teacher. The only reason I wanted anything good to happen to Elizabeth was because for some reason, it benefited Russell.

Overall, Bad Teacher was mildly funny. I have certainly seen worse movies. But it’s hard for me to love a movie where I can’t sympathize with the main character, and even harder for me to recommend it to people. Bad Teacher earns a place on the “wait to rent it” list. It’s one of those movies you watch because it’s on cable and it’s not so bad, not one you shell out $12 for to see on the big screen.