A decent comedy elevated by a good cast and director

Rating: 8/10 (9 November 2017)

Jack Black stars as a failed rock musician who in financial desperation, pretends to be his friend Mike White and takes a job as a substitute teacher at a prestigious private elementary school. Having no qualification, he initially treats it as an opportunity to goof of, until he realizes that his students are fairly gifted musicians. He trains them to be a rock band so that he can enter a battle of the bands competition and get revenge on his former band mates who kicked him out. Do I even need to tell you that Black learns to care about these kids? There's really nothing original here, but Black is in his element here and makes the material work. He gets some pretty solid support from Joan Cusack as the school principal. It's hardly among Richard Linklater's best films, but his relaxed, stoner style is well suited for the material.