Bad Teacher

Rating: 4/10 (12 March 2014)

I saw the trailer for this film once or twice during the time of it's release, I could tell it was going to be one of those films that wouldn't really grab many people, even before I saw any critics giving negative reviews, but I still tried it, from director Jake Kasdan (Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story). Basically Elizabeth Halsey (Cameron Diaz) is a teacher at John Adams Middle School in Chicago, but she is immoral and makes no effort to actually teach, she curses her students, she drinks heavily, she smokes marijuana, and her lessons all consist of showing the class movies while she sleeps. Being a gold digger she plans to quit the job and marry her rich fiancé, but he dumps her when he realises she is only after him for his money, so she is forced to stay in the job in order to get a potential boob job she is saving for, and then then she is told that there is a bonus for the teacher who has high scoring classes. So she makes much more effort to improve her students and actually teach them stuff they need to learn, her competition dedicated but overly enthusiastic teacher Amy Squirrel (Lucy Punch), and substitute teacher Scott Delacorte (Justin Timberlake) who is wealthy, but she may be much more interested in winning him over than his money. Elizabeth makes more attempts to look more dedicated, raising money for good causes and preparing her students for their exams, and during this gym teacher Russell Gettis (Jason Segel) keeps telling her he is romantically interested in her, but the feeling is not mutual, and Amy is trying to find dirt on her female rival to expose her for bad teaching and stop her getting the bonus. In the end, after the downfalls go away and normality is restored, as you would expect, Elizabeth proves herself a good member of staff, she rejects a relationship with Scott and forms one instead with Russell after all, she does not go ahead with the breast enlargement feeling comfortable as she is, and she gets a new position as student and teacher guidance counsellor. Also starring Phyllis Smith as Lynn Davies, John Michael Higgins as Principal Wally Snur and Dave Allen as Sandy Pinkus. Diaz does relatively alright as the hopeless educator, occasionally being sexy washing a car or whatever, Timberlake and Segel and other supporting cast do fine as well, but this film is indeed a misfire, there just isn't anything original, with the title you just know it is predictable, only one or two of the jokes made me titter, but no really big laughs, overall it is a disappointing comedy. Okay!