You have to admire Cameron Diaz for deciding to star in Bad Teacher. She could have just starred in an inoffensive romantic comedy with someone like Bradley Cooper about a plucky career gal who can't get a man so she lies and says she's an heiress or something stupid like that. Instead, she agreed to play a character who is an awful human being. The same can be said for the director, the writers and the people and everyone else who helped to produce and finace Bad Teacher. In an era in which movies, especially big budget summer releases, must be perfectly safe fodder for the masses, they made a movie in which the protagonist is someone for whom we should root against. Statues should be built in their honor for the chance they took and you should all go see Bad Teacher if only to encourage Hollywood to take more chances. Unfortunately, that's the only reason to see it since it's not very good.
Like many comedies, it has some laughs but not enough to sustain the movie. Sometimes it's even riotously funny but then there will be long stretches with zero laughs. The best part of the movie is Diaz herself and the wonderful dialogue she gets to say as Elizabeth Halsey. Elizabeth became a teacher because she thought her day would end at 3 PM and she would get summers off. She didn't realize it would also involve a great deal of work. When she discovered this, she set about trying to find a rich man to marry. Elizabeth is a selfish narcissist but she is capable of pretending that she is not for sometimes long periods. That's how she landed a rich man who dumped her at the beginning of the film after she spent $16,000 of his money on...well...even she probably doesn't know. This meant she had to go back to teaching junior high kids, an activity that mainly consists of showing them movies while she sleeps off the after effects of whatever mind altering substances she took the night before or, for that matter, just before class. Lucky for her, Scott Delacorte (Justin Timberlake) joins the faculty. Scott is good looking and rich but he's also simplistically sunny and good natured. As has been stated, Elizabeth can fake this well enough especially since Scott is a very trusting soul. However, Scott doesn't seem interested in her and Elizabeth in convinced that this is because Scott likes women with huge breasts. She then goes on a near-holy mission to save the money to get a breast enlargement and hilarity ensues. Well, some hilarity. Just not enough.
As has been said, there's some humor in this. If you've seen the trailer, you saw the part where Elizabeth uses her sex appeal to increase business at a student car wash. You also saw Jason Segel's gym teacher character passionately (and hilariously) arguing with a 13 year old about whether Michael Jordan and LeBron James is better. Not in the trailer is a funny scene in which Scott Delacorte reveals some rather unusual sexual tastes. Also not in the trailer are the scenes that don't work and there are several of those. Also, Elizabeth becomes insufferable after a while. This is exemplified by scenes like when she rubs an apple with poison ivy and makes sure it's eaten by her perfectly decent rival named Any Squirrel (Lucy Punch). Actions like that make you realize you really shouldn't be rooting for Elizabeth to accomplish anything even though she's being played by one of Hollywood's most likable actresses,
Again, congratulations to Hollywood for making a movie about a horrible person who does awful things that very much justify the movie's R rating. Please do this again with a better movie.
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