Bad Teacher Comes Across as a Bolder and More Exciting Comedy Than it Really is

Rating: 6/10 (25 February 2017)

R-rated comedies are now a very popular genre due to the success of mainly the Judd Apatow comedies (e.g. 40 Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up and Superbad). What once was a very popular style of film with unique comic genius sprouting it has become a little diluted, watered-down and it can be hard to distinguish between or remember them. In the past, we had a case of extremes with some movies of this kind doing really well at the box office (Horrible Bosses, Bridesmaids, Ted and Deadpool) to some doing only okay business (Fist Fight, The Nice Guys and The Boss). Bad Teacher was able to drum up that kind of business through the sex appeal of Cameron Diaz. Whether that translates into a good movie; you will have to decide for yourself.
*Minor Spoilers Ahead* We begin the movie with middle-school teacher Elizabeth Hazley (Cameron Diaz) who is retiring after the finished school year. She is too young retire but she is more interested in sponging off her rich fiancée. The other teachers do not seem to be to upset about her departure because it is a widely held belief that Elizabeth is a horrible teacher. She has no relationship with her students and does not a care at all for their well being. After she gets home, her husband is at the door with her bags packed. It turns out he caught on just in time and he kicks her out of the house. After sulking in her apartment and after smoking some very potent weed she returns to school at the start of the year because of her lack of other options and is befriended by Lynn Davies (Phyllis Smith) who is more of a sweet sycophant who lets Elizabeth bully her around. Elizabeth decides that she needs to attract another wealthy man and to do this, she should have breast augmentation surgery. She is willing to lie, cheat and steal to achieve this but she is currently without the funding.
She is immediately attracted to the rich, substitute teacher Scott Delacorte (Justin Timberlake) who is naïve to her plot and very nerdy to be honest and she also makes an enemy of Amy Squirrell (Lucy Punch) who is a very committed teacher but is also a type a control freak who is less than impressed by Elizabeth's teaching philosophies (e.g. having the students watch movies all class while she drinks and sleeps). Things do not go well for her off the start. Even through her manipulation she cannot interest Scott who is better suited for Amy and she cannot raise the money even though she steals from parents for "tutoring sessions." She also berates the kids and steals the money from their charity car wash. At the same time, she is having to resist the subtle advances of the gym teacher Russell Gettis (Jason Segel) who is very genuine and cool but he d does not fit her criteria for her ideal man. After this she hears from Principal Wally Snur (John Michael Higgins) about a bonus given to the teacher whose class finishes the highest on state test scores. With this information, Elizabeth changes her style on a dime and becomes a bullying authoritarian who is abusive to her students to try and get them to learn the material faster.
Whether you will like this movie or not will come down to where you fall in terms of crass humour; the jokes are mainly done through extremely vulgar language and pratfalls and I found them to be really hit or miss. Cameron Diaz did make me laugh a few times but her language and character are so vulgar and nasty that it really turned me off. I don't care if she is hot, it's to the point where it would get her smacked. There was also very little arc to her character which disappointed me. I don't expect her to change completely but she only came to self-realization on a selective basis. Now on the flip side the acting was pretty good even though most of the characters were unrealistic. A lot of the character actors were solid including Smith and Higgins. They definitely made the most out of what they were given. Jason Segel had by far the easiest character to like but he really wasn't central to the plot at all.
The writing was pretty lazy here and it really depends on your sense of humour. I fell somewhere in the middle. Some of the stuff worked, some of it didn't. I would say the jokes hit on a rate of 40/60. Now the plot did offer some twists and turns and I actually liked where they decided to go with the ending but it is by no means exceptional. It happens just to be one of the few things I did like about the movie.
Now some of the performances weren't bad but my sheer dislike of their characters brought them down. I thought this was probably the weakest I've seen Justin Timberlake, he played Scott as a passive aggressive douche/wimp. Lucy Punch really did try as Amy but again the fact that her character turns out to be as bad as Elizabeth even though we're rooting for her off the start, ruins it.
I'm split on this movie. I liked about 40% of it but I still keep coming back to the point that this movie hinges on Cameron Diaz and I just fell that she failed to carry the movie. Did she try? Yes but you have to make the audience care just a little bit which didn't happen. The movie did make me laugh several times though so it does earn a 6/10. I'm glad that Cameron is taking different roles though. This is a decent but ultimately forgettable summer comedy. I would recommend it only to die hard fans of the genre.