Sunday 24 July 2016

Weekend TV Movie Review: Bad Teacher - E4 (2011)

Bad Teacher
2011
Cast: Cameron Diaz, Jason Segel, Justin Timberlake, Lucy Punch, Lee Eisenberg 
Genre: Comedy
Estimated Worldwide Gross: $215,448,997

Plot: For most, teaching is an honourable profession - except for Elizabeth (Cameron Diaz). The foul-mouthed, boozy woman can't wait to marry a rich man and quit her job, but she has to rethink her plans when her sugar daddy dumps her. Then Scott Delacorte (Justin Timberlake), a substitute teacher who's cute & rich, arrives. Elizabeth can't wait to sink her teeth into a new meal ticket, but she faces stiff competition from Amy (Lucy Punch), a popular & perky colleague







'An Obscenely Bad Movie' 

I didn't tune in with high expectations, but in coming across so many negative comments and scores for this film, I knew I had to see it for myself to find out whether it is as bad as a lot of people make it out to be. 


Diaz plays a teacher named Elizabeth who has no morals, no depth, is difficult to empathise with. She smokes pot & her improper conduct and lack of ethics spiral downhill. Sounds like a recipe for disaster, right? For the film that is, yes. 

There are comedy films that are funny, and there are comedy films that resort to crude humour that is to the point cringe-inducing. Seeing Cameron Diaz swear her head off wasn't funny. Her character is obnoxious, unpleasant and foul-mouthed and self-absorbed that all she cares about is getting the money so she can spend it on a boob job. Instead of being a teacher, she should've opted for 
a career in the porn industry. I suppose that had her character been at least funny, I'd have excused some of her behaviours.

I know this is supposed to be a dark comedy & aimed at the teenage market, but seriously the script was just so ridiculous & badly written; it mainly consisted of F-words & scenes of the lead character being so pretentious and vile. The story as straight forward as it is doesn't allow the characters to develop properly, but be mere cartoon character-like characters & act and say things that are 'supposedly' funny. I am no prude and I don't mind cursing in movies, but whereas a film like Spy (2015) had some really interesting and funny characters and the jokes were funny, they weren't funny to the point it was that vulgar, besides the penis scene. But they were funny because there was a point to each gag and scene. Bad Teacher's so-called unfunny and vulgar jokes had no point in any scene or gag, but rather they just left a nasty taste in my mouth. I'm all for low brow humour, - but ultimately when it borders on being so incredibly vile and narcissistic, that's when I draw the line. 

There is a scene where Justin Timberlake sings some song. and the dry humping sex scene involving himself and Cameron Diaz isn't really funny. In fact, I didn't find one scene that was funny, most of the acting came across as being forced and wasn't entirely convincing. There was not one single character that was frankly likeable, no personalities whatsoever - they all had ulterior motives for their actions. 



The film doesn't really go anywhere. It tries to be raunchy with one scene featuring Diaz's character wearing a provocative outfit and trying to wash a car. I managed to stick it out and see it through and after 1 hr 45 mins (or be it 97 mins minus the ads), I was so glad to see it end. It was so poor from beginning to end. The ending was unbelievable but given the state that this movie was in, it summed up how 'bad' it truly was.  

I noticed that in this film the actress who plays Amy looks strikingly similar to Catherine Tate. All the cast members were either miscast, or they just made terrible decisions in being directly involved with this film. Justin Timberlake tried, but he is a better singer than an actor. Or be it not very good with his film choices. One can tell how utterly bored or unconvincing their performances were, due to the terrible and lacklustre writing and lack of character development. 


Watching this whole movie did not leave me feeling good, it wasn't fun to watch this film, it bored me to death as well. It literately makes Horrible Bosses and American Pie look like Casablanca and Gone With The Wind by comparison


Final Verdict: 


Bad Teacher tries to be a Black comedy and it is yet another in the long line of crass comedy movies that mainstream Hollywood has been desperately churning out for the past 10 years, & yet it fails in every respect. It becomes nothing more than a one-joke movie with crass humour, littered with unfunny scenes and lines. Yet the mean-spirited ness of it was what put me off from this train-wreck of a film. 

Boring, crude, lacklustre and a lame attempt at dark comedy and very unappealing and unimaginative, thank goodness this wasn't 2 hours long. I enjoy my comedy movies, but this, by far, instead of the humour making me feel good, it left me feeling absolutely nothing for the characters, nor their fate in the end. 

This is truly one of the worst films I'd sat through in my entire life - yet at least this was on TV and that I didn't spend a dime on the DVD of this film. 

No wonder it was (rightly) labelled a disaster. 


Overall:

*mark updated: 31 July, 2016*







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