Movie Review: School for Scoundrels

School for Scoundrels

It was kind of a rough week in my household (work, work, and more work!), and I was really looking forward to laughing. I thought School for Scoundrels might fill the bill. Silly me.

Roger Waddell (Jon Heder) is sorely in need of a school for something. He's a nice enough guy, but socially awkward and subject to panic attacks around women. His scintillating career as a New York City meter "maid" doesn't help his desirability, either. But when he finds himself rejected yet again, a well-meaning buddy suggests he make a phone call.

Roger only knows that he'd really, really like to go out with his neighbor. Amanda (Jacinda Barrett) lives with her caustic roommate, Becky (Sarah Silverman) in an apartment just down the hall. In the end, it's his desire for Amanda more than any other of his myriad personal issues that convinces him to pick up the phone.

When Roger arrives in class, he meets the mysterious Dr. P (Billy Bob Thornton) and his assistant, a real tough guy named Lesher (Michael Clarke Duncan). He also finds himself in the midst of a group of other men just like him, men Dr. P says aren't even good enough to call themselves losers (as he succinctly points out, losers are those who've tried and lost; the men in his class haven't even bothered trying).

Though Dr. P's methods are unconventional at best, it seems that Roger might actually be getting his money's worth — and the class isn't cheap! Roger finally gets the nerve to ask Amanda on a date; Becky, meanwhile, is far from convinced that doing anything with Roger is remotely a good idea. Still, it's possible that things might not go all that badly. But then Dr. P himself makes a move, and Roger has to fight back if he intends to have any chance at all at getting the girl of his dreams.

Enlisting the help of some friends (played by Matt Walsh, Todd Louiso, and Horatio Sands) from class, Roger puts plans in motion that will make him or break him, once and for all.

The premise behind School for Scoundrels is okay. We know that Billy Bob Thornton is more than capable of great comedy (Bad Santa, anybody?), and Jon Heder has something of a reputation for the same himself (the critically acclaimed Napoleon Dynamite brought Heder into his own). And yet both are strangely flat here. Michael Clarke Duncan seems bizarrely beneath himself as both Dr. P's underling and something far more nefarious; a cameo by Ben Stiller is overacted, even for him. Meanwhile, Jacinda Barrett is much too perky for her own good — or that of anybody else.

Roger's classmates are as stereotypical as it gets — which might not be so bad if the acting wasn't also so melodramatic (something for which we can probably blame the director). In fact, the only person that comes off at all well here is the erstwhile Sarah Silverman. More Becky and less everybody else, please!

I frankly blame the director and writers for this mess. Todd Phillips, who co-wrote and directed School for Scoundrels, has the well received (well, among certain audiences, anyway) Old School on his résumé; co-writer Scott Armstrong was also involved with Old School. But the vast majority of what they've written here isn't slapstick enough to be silly, and it's far from clever enough to be amusing; the direction, while competent, can't compensate for that.

The trailers and other advertising for School for Scoundrels made it sound like it had potential. It did. But it didn't even begin to live up to any of it.

FAMILY SUITABILITY: School for Scoundrels is rated PG-13 for "language, crude and sexual content, and some violence." It seems to me the rating is just about right. The crudity is there, but not overly so; the sexual content is school-boyish enough that most tweens and teens are beyond it already. The only real problem with School for Scoundrels is that it's supposed to be a comedy, and it's not funny. If you don't believe me, just ask anybody else in the well-attended showing I saw. They weren't laughing either.