Doesn't make the grade.

Rating: 2/10 (25 December 2019)

A foul-mouthed, hard-drinking, pot-smoking, gold-digging, self-obsessed teacher (Cameron Diaz) tries to raise money for a boob job so she can land herself a rich boyfriend and give up working for a living. In the course of doing so, she embezzles cash from a school fund-raiser, lures an exam-board worker to his office with the promise of sex before drugging him and stealing the latest test sheets, and frames a hard-working and honest co-worker for the possession of drugs (after stealing her boyfriend). By the end of the film, Diaz's character is still as morally reprehensible as ever, having learnt nothing about the value of teaching (except for the monetary rewards that comes with results), which makes the whole sorry mess a totally pointless exercise. The moral of the movie seems to be 'do whatever the hell you want, no matter how it affects those around you'. What a lovely sentiment!
Jake Kasdan, director of the recent Jumanji movies, fails to raise many laughs, working from a puerile and vulgar script that is more embarrassing than it is funny. Diaz is there, of course, to flaunt her body, which she does a lot, and she is still in cracking shape for someone knocking on the door of 40; however, time has been less forgiving on her face, which prevents her from being the complete sexy package that she is supposed to be in this film. To sum up: zero life lessons learnt, cringeworthy comedy, and a star who looks good in daisy dukes, but whose shelf life as a sex symbol is clearly coming to an end.