Bad Teacher

Directed by Jake Kasdan, Bad Teacher follows foul-mouthed, gold-digging teacher Elizabeth Halsey as she attempts to land a rich husband – with the character’s efforts eventually leading to a wealthy watch-fortune heir (Justin Timberlake’s Scott Delacorte). Filmmaker Kasdan, working from a script by Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg, does a nice job of initially cultivating a watchable (if unspectacular) atmosphere, as the movie opens with a series of amusing sequences that effectively (and seemingly) set the stage for a tongue-in-cheek, unabashedly irreverent comedy. It’s only as the film charges into its increasingly uneven midsection that one’s interest begins to wane, with Kasdan’s emphasis on comedic set pieces of a desperate, hopelessly unfunny nature – eg Elizabeth’s encounter with an off-kilter state tests representative (Thomas Lennon’s Carl) – triggering Bad Teacher‘s transformation into a disappointingly tedious piece of work. The underwhelming vibe is exacerbated by the less-than-subtle efforts of several supporting cast members, with Lucy Punch’s painfully broad turn as a rival teacher bringing the proceedings to a complete and utter stop every time she appears on screen. (It’s also worth noting that the otherwise reliable Timberlake fares just as poorly, as the likeable performer has been saddled with a one-note character that grows more and more obnoxious as time progresses.) By the time the anticlimactic, seemingly endless final half hour rolls around, Bad Teacher has certainly established itself as a failure of dishearteningly monumental proportions – which is too bad, really, given that Diaz is actually quite good in the title role.

*1/2 out of ****