A good "Rotten Apple"

Rating: 8/10 (19 October 2011)

There will be those who watch Jake Kasdan's "Bad Teacher" and automatically think back to the cult classic Billy Bob Thornton-starring, Terry Zwigoff-directed comedy "Bad Santa" (2003) and think that the two movies are somewhat similar: Both pictures center around a drug-abusing, alcohol-swilling "protagonist" who doesn't give an "F" about anything but abusing drugs and swilling alcohol, yet somehow by the end of the story is forced to change their ways... just a little bit.
"Bad Teacher" is a rotten apple of a dark comedy about a Bad Teacher, Elizabeth Halsey (Cameron Diaz), whose gold-digging ways are exposed by her fiancé at the beginning of the movie and left with little recourse, she is forced to return to her much-hated job as a middle school teacher at John Adams Middle School (JAMS). On her first day back, she makes the acquaintance of the geeky new substitute teacher Scott Delacorte (Justin Timberlake), who also happens to be heir to a watch fortune; he also happens to like women with big boobs. So taking advantage of this fact to get him to become her new sugar daddy and concocting a scheme to get a $5700 bonus for getting the highest standardized test grades, she'll then use the money she earns from that to get breast implants. And she must also fend off the romantic advances of pot-smoking gym teacher Russell Gettis (Jason Segel) and a caring goody-good rival named Amy Squirrel (Lucy Punch).
This is not a bad film. Some thought "Bad Santa" would scare people because little kids would go into it thinking it was a new Christmas movie about Santa Claus (and we all know how well that turned out). Some of the humor is very dark and very crude (and sometimes forced), but I welcome it as a change to the usual run-of-the-mill "light comedy" being pushed upon us week after week. I laughed at many of the jokes here, and maybe some people have difficulty finding this sort of dark, crude humor funny. Some of the sub-plots involving a bullied unpopular kid and his crush on a pretty classmate are fairly underwhelming.
On a more positive note, some of the characters are pretty colorful. Diaz is still looking great (I have to fake it here because I just can't get into blondes), but she relishes her role as a Bad Teacher with pill-popping, pot-smoking, alcohol-swilling pizazz. She shows up to work hung-over, and spends her nights hanging out at bars trying to hook up with any rich guy willing to take a chance with a gold-digging middle school teacher. I think it's a welcome change from her usual light-hearted comedic fare. In a nutshell, she gives the film's best performance.
Surprisingly, Justin Timberlake, I think, continues to grow as a performer, especially after his well-received roles in past movies such as "Alpha Dog" (2006), and "The Social Network" (2010). While his work is not "great" here, it is at least showing that he is indeed capable of giving solid performances if given the right material. Phyllis Smith is also hilarious as their slightly neurotic fellow co-worker Lynn Davies. Segel probably gives the film's most grounded and realistic performance as the gym teacher who is only concerned with simply having fun, even though by his own admission he doesn't have a whole lot to have fun with.
"Bad Teacher" is a rotten apple that gets a "B+" for effort.
8/10