Old School director Todd Phillips takes the reins for an updated remake of the 1960 comedy, this time starring Napoleon Dynamite's Jon Heder as Roger, a lovelorn meter reader who enrolls in a confidence-building class in order to win the love of his dream girl, and Billy Bob Thornton as Dr. P, the scheming, egomaniacal teacher who has designs of his own for the attractive young female. The rivalry soon spins out of control, as pranks and insults fly fast and furiously in a battle to determine
the ultimate "guy's guy." ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
Things get increasingly dopey in the final act, leading to an incredibly stupid ending, but I have to admit I laughed just enough to recommend School for Scoundrels.
School for Scoundrels has some solid opportunities for real dark comedy, but blows most of them for maudlin romantic-comedy tripe, and the ones it does go for it never takes far enough.
...the film remains consistently watchable thanks to Todd Phillips and Scot Armstrong's surprisingly clever screenplay and the uniformly effective performances.
The only link to the original books is the name Dr P given to the foulmouthed teacher of a New York class offering assertiveness training to pathetic nerds. He's played by Billy Bob Thornton, which is rather like casting Burt Reynolds as Bertrand Russell.
Only toward the end of the film do the hostilities reach a level of recklessness with any potential to be funny. If things had started at that pitch and been ramped up from there, Phillips might have had a movie worth making.
Yep, I just can't get enough of Billy-Bob. The story was the completely reverse of what I thought it was going to be, which turned out to be a funnier concept.
Billy-Bob does sarcastically irritating exceptionally well.
The film kind of reminded me of Anger Management , but with more of a twist.
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