Bad Teacher

TedFlicks Rating:

$10.00 ticket on a scale of $0 to $13.50

THE LIONESS IN WINTER

Despite its flaws, vulgarity, foul language, and near total lack of a payoff in the final reel, “Bad Teacher,” the latest comedy vehicle for Cameron Diaz, is an hysterically funny movie that actually has some charm.  Helmed by young vet Jake Kasdan, pic is a 92 minute fantasy for grown up junior high school geeks — specifically former 7^th graders who wish that they had been the cool kids way back when.

This begs the age question.  Diaz is on the cusp of aging out of such a role.  At 38, despite being smoking hot, she no longer looks like a 20-something.  As a 7^th grade teacher at Chicago’s John Adams Middle School (JAMS) who spends a good deal of screen time high or hung over, however, a little haggardness works.  Thirty-year-old Justin Timberlake, who has morphed from boy-band wonder to a credible actor, is a tad better cast as the wealthy, young, new teacher Scott Delacorte, in whom Diaz’ Elizabeth Halsey and rival teacher Amy Squirrel (Lucy Punch) have an interest.

In no way does this mean that Diaz is not up to the part.  Her extraordinary comic acting chops carry the picture.  The woman is a younger Carol Burnett on the silver screen.

Plot is straightforward.  Gold-digging Halsey returns to work at JAMS after being dumped by her rich fiancé — with his mother’s help.  JAMS is her pit stop.  Her finish line is a rich husband.  Why teach?  You get summers off and still get paid.  A foul mouthed realist, who never pulls a punch unless she is on the make, Halsey has avoided friendships with her colleagues and skated through classes showing movies while nursing hangovers.  All this changes when she finds a new goal:  breast enlargement surgery.  Double Ds will attract a rich man, she thinks.  The operation costs $10k.  Halsey is broke.  One of the funniest scenes on screen takes place in the plastic surgeon’s examining room as one of his prior patients models his work for Halsey.  If those really are doctor-enhanced, they are the best work your critic has ever seen.

It is tough to imagine Cammy Diaz not being able to attract any guy she wants, but this is fantasy, so we shall suspend disbelief.  Remainder of pic’s 92 minutes (admirable economy by Tara Timpone in the cutting room) centers on stiletto heeled Halsey’s quest for $10k and rival Squirrel’s quest to upend her.  The kids largely function to move the plot along.  The showbiz admonition never to play scenes opposite kids or animals does not apply.

First caper is the car-wash.  Hearing that it raises money for the 7^th grade annual field trip, Halsey plunges into it with all the gusto that a half-naked hottie on a mission can bring.  She stages the school’s most successful car-wash ever, causes a couple of traffic accidents, and gives a 7^th grader a boner while raking in the tips, which go into a fishbowl labeled “Tits Fund.”  The car wash may be pic’s most skillfully shot and edited scene.

Second caper is a tad more elaborate.  The teacher of JAMS’ best class in the Illinois state exam gets a $5,700 bonus.  This transforms Miss Hangover into Miss Drill Sergeant, and 7^th grade into boot camp.  Those of a generation older than Diaz will remember it well.  However, in their day, teachers did not scrawl the word “f**king” on students’ essays.  Eventually Halsey concocts a plot to steal the state exam answer sheet, teaches accordingly, and wins the prize.

All of this puts Squirrel on the boil.  Punch is totally suited to the role of the annoyingly cute, enthusiastic type who, had she been a kid in Catholic school, would have ratted out other kids gleefully to the nuns for smoking.  Squirrel is the sort of persona whom one wants to punch in the face.

Enter Justin Timberlake.  He totally nails the role of sensitive, impressionable, rich guy with absolutely no depth.  He and Squirrel are totally suited to each other.  An devilish prank played on Squirrel lands Halsey in his hotel room on the 7^th grade field trip.  There he proves to be the world’s most selfish lover in yet another over-the-top sight gag, in the midst of which Halsey messes with Squirrel’s head — by mobile phone.

Just as Squirrel thinks she has turned the tables on Halsey, the latter pulls off an extraordinary reversal of fortune.  Along the way, she manages to give some serious romance advice to a colleague and to the world’s dorkiest 7^th grader.  In a rare moment of charity, she actually transforms the dork into the coolest boy in the class.  It’s just the right amount of heart delivered with just the right amount of cold blood.

Meanwhile, a sub-plot sets gym teacher Russell Gettis (Jason Segel) on the make for Halsey, who tells him flat out that he’s punching way above his weight.

Kudos to John Michael Higgins as the school principal, to Phyllis Smith as chubby teacher Lynn Davies, and to scribes Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg.  Timberlake proves to be a sport by writing and performing (and taking blame for) “Simpatico,” perhaps the worst song ever filmed.  Kasdan pulls it all together with a firm hand.  The only real flaw in “Bad Teacher” is a rather limp Hollywood ending.

Teenagers will love “Bad Teacher.”  Too bad for them that it is rated “R” thanks to the foul language, sight gags, drug use, and the wonderful scene in the plastic surgeon’s examining room.

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Bad Teacher on Netflix