School for Scoundrels (2006)

Originally Reviewed 

Wednesday July 4, 2007

What could be better than Napoleon Dynamite "King of the Tots" and Billy Bob "King of the French Fried Taters"? Two funny guys who both share a love for fried potatoes teaming up to make a film that's guaranteed to make milk come out of your nose right...? uh huh! For a film I have been waiting to view for months, maybe looking forward to seeing it was the first mistake. School For Scoundrels would have been more entertaining if it had actually been a combination of the two characters that made these actors careers most memorable.

Jon Heder plays Roger, an unlucky, insecure and awkward young man. Roger is a parking meter attendant so it's pretty safe to say his life is made up of a lot of people making fun him. It's come down to the point where Roger is fed up with being pushed around and decides to take the advice of a friend and attend a secret class taught by a man named Dr. P, played by none other than Billy Bob Thornton. Dr. P is a rather ruthless and crude man whose purpose in teaching this "school for scoundrels" is to turn useless bags of crap into men.

While Dr. P's techniques seem a little out of the ordinary and almost insane they actually appear to be working and the students in the class who finally learn to stand up for themselves. Roger gets the nerve to ask the girl in his apartment out and has an excellent first date, but then things begin to go horribly wrong. Dr. P starts to move in on Roger's girlfriend, now Roger is faced with the problem of outsmarting his teacher at his own game, but the last student who tried to tangle with Dr. P is now a hermit living outside of town with a house full of cats! Roger is now faced with the ultimate test, can he outsmart the master and win back his girlfriend or will his life blow up before him?

I'd been looking forward to seeing this film for sometime now, unfortunately Netflix appears to only carry the "Unrated" version of the film which is kind of annoying seeing that usually the unrated version of these types of films doesn't mean better, it only means cruder. Billy Bob Thorton is the kind of guy who can make a PG film appear like it should be rated R with his language, that's the truth here. So being unsure whether or not I would have enjoyed the theatrical version I can only say the version I saw was only mildly entertaining. Jon Heder does an excellent job at playing the loser, and the film has a few notably funny scenes, but mainly it turns out to be one of those films where the best scenes are what is shown in the trailer.

Billy Bob is Billy Bob, I have never really been a fan of his because every other word out of his mouth is an explicative and frankly I don't find continuous cursing very entertaining or amusing. With that said he was definitely well cast for this character and facing him against Jon Heder was at times quite humorous. But overall the film only has its moments; it might be worth seeing once if you like either of the films lead actors otherwise your not missing anything if you pass it up. The one positive thing I can say is it's slightly better and less corny than Heder's last film The Benchwarmers, but then again that's not really saying a whole lot.

6/10