Bad Teacher (2011)

All Critics (174) | Top Critics (38) | Fresh (79) | Rotten (98) | DVD (8)

If you can see past the dismal sexual politics of "Bad Teacher," which I couldn't, you might applaud the gall of a film that expends so little effort in forcing us to like its central character.

June 27, 2011 Full Review

Anthony Lane

New Yorker

Top Critic

A frustrating mix of smart flash and smirking impudence.

June 27, 2011 Full Review

Betsy Sharkey

Los Angeles Times

Top Critic

Hard to root for such a selfish lead, but "Bad Teacher" has just enough politically incorrect humor to warrant a grade of B.

June 24, 2011 Full Review

Richard Roeper

Richard Roeper.com

Top Critic

If you're looking for a funny comedy about a cynical, hard-partying school teacher transformed by his students into a paragon of pedagogical awesomeness, skip Bad Teacher and go rent School of Rock instead.

June 24, 2011 Full Review | Comments (9)

Dana Stevens

Slate

Top Critic

There are plenty of quality gags seeping through from the margins.

June 24, 2011 Full Review

Scott Tobias

NPR

Top Critic

Has its lewd funniness, though not often enough to make it worthy of not only Bad Santa but, more to the point, School of Rock.

June 24, 2011 Full Review

Peter Rainer

Christian Science Monitor

Top Critic

Cameron Diaz eats the screen up in Bad Teacher but can't withstand the enormously dim-witted script.

March 2, 2013 Full Review

Benjo Colautti

We Got This Covered

A raunchy comedy that promises, from its title to its casting, a "Bad Santa" riff on a sacred institution...But they don't deliver.

January 2, 2013 Full Review

Roger Moore

McClatchy-Tribune News Service

Crass, charmless and not especially funny, Bad Teacher is like a school kid trying to be cool.

September 28, 2012 Full Review

Ali Gray

TheShiznit.co.uk

In the end, despite how thinly-plotted the film is, there are several laughs to be had, and that goes a long way.

September 20, 2012 Full Review

Jeff Beck

Examiner.com

Bad Teacher doesn't quite get an F. But an acceptable C+ is pretty fair.

January 29, 2012 Full Review

R. L. Shaffer

IGN DVD

Kadan's direction is adequate with everything competently done, but there's nothing here that manages to make you laugh out loud. Could someone tell the current crop of Hollywood filmmakers to find some new jokes?

December 13, 2011 Full Review

Laurence Boyce

The Baltic Times

The problem isn't that Diaz's character is such a mean-spirited person, it's that her motives for being that way are completely contrived.It might have been a good short film, but that's about it.

October 27, 2011 Full Review

Eric Melin

Scene-Stealers.com

Provided you're in the mood for salacious fare, this titillating teensploit does deliver the requisite number of raunchy rib ticklers to be worth the investment.

October 23, 2011 Full Review | Comment (1)

Kam Williams

NewsBlaze

Sets back feminism a few centuries, but who cares. Because if we're talking self-criticism of the species, some women are let's face it, what can only be termed female chauvinists. And Diaz reinforces every single negative female stereotype with relish.

October 11, 2011 Full Review

Prairie Miller

NewsBlaze

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September 29, 2011 Full Review | Comment (1)

Joseph Proimakis

Movies for the Masses

Gross-out comedy big on cheap laughs, short on depth

August 4, 2011 Full Review

Adam Bub

MovieFIX

The story is predictably thin and the jokes suitably unsophisticated, but the clever characterisations help this paint-by-numbers comedy limp over the line to "watchable".

July 28, 2011 Full Review

Tim Martain

The Mercury

Weirdly ill-conceived. Diaz is good and very believable as ... the most dislikable character I've encountered in a film in a long time ... [which] makes for a lousy movie.

July 27, 2011 Full Review | Comment (1)

CJ Johnson

ABC Radio (Australia)

The only way to understand this movie's argument about performance pay is to imagine Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker watching it.

July 26, 2011 Full Review

Stephen Himes

Film Snobs

She's not somewhat bad, she's not repentantly bad and she's certainly not sympathetically bad. Nope, she's just plain ol' bad. And that is a thing of rare beauty.

July 25, 2011 Full Review | Comments (2)

Anders Wotzke

Moviedex

... more interesting (albeit disheartening) for what it seems to say about public-school teachers ...

July 24, 2011 Full Review

Jim Lane

Sacramento News & Review

This is too easy, but I'm going to do it anyway: Bad Teacher? Bad movie.

July 21, 2011 Full Review | Comments (7)

Matt Neal

The Standard

Somehow, surprisingly, without things ever turning schmaltzy, we end up caring about this selfish, foul-mouthed teacher, even if it's just a smidgen. And in hindsight, that's a pretty impressive feat.

July 19, 2011 Full Review | Comment (1)

Cara Nash

FILMINK (Australia)

While a few of Diaz's scenes with Timberlake and his gift for the deadpan seem as if they're going to amount to something, the script's dialogue fails them.

July 19, 2011 Full Review

Sandra Hall

Sydney Morning Herald

• 1. Amy Squirrel: Shut the front door!
  – Submitted by Zach C (2 months ago)
• 1. Elizabeth: You keep saying shit like that, and you're gonna get punched.
  – Submitted by Lucie H (6 months ago)
• 1. Lynn Davies: Do you want to come see Period 5 play? It's the teacher band.
  2. Elizabeth: I'd rather get shot in the face.
  – Submitted by Drew R (11 months ago)
• 1. Lynn Davies: I love how his eyes sparkle when he smiles.
  – Submitted by Amanda T (18 months ago)
• 1. Principal Wally Snur: I have a bumper sticker that says that!
  – Submitted by Nick A (18 months ago)
• 1. Elizabeth Halsey: What I do know, Is anyone who wears the same Gymnastics sweatshirt three times a week isn't getting laid till there 29.
  – Submitted by Nick A (18 months ago)

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