School For Scoundrels

Spectacular! Horrific! Tremendous! Vomit Inducing! There are many ways to begin a movie review at any one point in time. The reviewer could promise the thrill of a lifetime to potential viewers, or warn of the worst way to spend eight dollars and a Friday night. There might be mention of clever opening titles, uncommonly witty dialogue, a strong performance by a newcomer, or a weak performance by a usually dependable star. Indeed, the beginning of a review should be easy, possibly even fun, but what’s to be done when there’s nothing? With a film that runs like a straight line, right down the middle of the road so to speak, what is a writer to do but recognize the lack of anything remarkable? Such is my dilemma with “School For Scoundrels.”
The premise of the film is a funny one even if it is a bit of a rehash; maybe these producers never saw “Hitch.” John Heder, who will not be referred to as belonging to “Napoleon Dynamite” plays Roger a meter maid who is more or less a loser with a crush on Amanda, his Australian neighbor in the apartment down the hall. When his self-esteem reaches an all time low he is recommended to Dr. P, played to mediocrity when we expected perfection by Billy Bob Thornton. Dr. P is a harsh but streetwise charmer who teaches a class for guys like Roger. All this is told in the preview, so the thing we go to see is where does it go from here? I’ll tell you where… Nowhere!
I can think of no significantly funny part of the movie that didn’t have its punch line in the trailer, which means that watching it is like opening gifts on Christmas morning after you’ve already peeked through them at least four times if not five. And what’s worse is, you’re not opening a new camera or some limited edition collectable, your opening socks.
As the movie progresses we all know that each of the key performers could have done better. Billy Bob Thornton is just going through the motions, John Heder finally is recognizable as something apart from Napoleon Dynamite but it doesn’t make it better in fact I’d prefer the moon boots and sweet moves. Even Sarah Silverman as the obnoxious and unrelenting roommate of the dream girl only serves to remind the audience of how much funnier she can be, and is in movies like “School of Rock.”
Todd Phillips directs here with much more restraint than he’s shown in previous works like “Old School” or “Road Trip,” Obviously in an attempt to maintain the younger teenage audience that flocks to Heder’s films but would be restricted by an R rating. Sadly his restraint has led him to hold back from ever letting this movie get far enough out of hand to qualify as a modern day farce, something it could have possibly achieved.
When it’s really examined closely it becomes painfully obvious that “School For Scoundrels” is a lot of other movies’ ideas repackaged into yet another “new movie.” however most of the films that it imitates did it better the first time. Certainly some parallels can be drawn in comparison to “The 40 Year Old Virgin” but we never see in Roger the completeness of character we saw in Steve Carell’s Andy. It also calls to memory the before mentioned and similarly named “School of Rock” but Jack Black made such a memorable character and we forget Thornton by the time we’ve decided that we will just leave the theater without disposing of garbage in the proper receptacle.
When it’s all been boiled down the movie’s fault is the same as Thornton’s. It is occasionally funny, and not unbearable to sit through, but when it’s over it doesn’t stay with us because there’s no substance just fluff, and fluff isn’t a movie, it’s not really anything at all.


C