Cameron Diaz stars in 'Bad Teacher': movie review
The game plan of 鈥�Bad Teacher鈥� is quite simple 鈥� create a middle school variant on 鈥�Bad Santa.鈥� I happen to like 鈥淏ad Santa.鈥� When it came out, I was more than amused by the angry ruckus from people who, apparently, like little Virginia, think Santa Claus is real.
Jake Kasdan鈥檚 鈥淏ad Teacher,鈥� written by Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg, has its lewd funniness, though not often enough to make it worthy of not only 鈥淏ad Santa鈥� but, more to the point, 鈥�School of Rock.鈥�
Cameron Diaz鈥檚 Elizabeth Halsey is a middle school English teacher 鈥� at least I think she teaches English 鈥� who is on the prowl for a rich guy after her wealthy fianc茅 dumps her for running up a whopping tab on his credit card. Her immediate goal: pulling together the many thousands she鈥檒l need for a first-class breast implant job.
A rich but dweeby new teacher, played by Justin Timberlake, ends up being snared by a ding-a-ling/dweeby social studies teacher, played with pinpoint goofiness by Lucy Punch. That leaves gym teacher Russell Gettis (Jason Segel), who doesn鈥檛 let his slim bank account slow down his advances to the unadmiring Elizabeth.
These two seem made for each other 鈥� he鈥檚 hip to all her scams and enjoys watching them disintegrate 鈥� but her conversion from gold-digging shrew to (sort of) good girl is way too rapid. On the other hand, this 92-plus-minute movie seems overlong. Grade: B- (Rated R for sexual content, nudity, language, and some drug use.)
