Bad Teacher (2011) R

We haven't quite seen Cameron Diaz (There's Something About Mary, Vanilla Sky) like this before. I've always thought she's an underrated actress myself. We've seen glimpses of insanity and sassiness from Diaz in films like A Life Less Ordinary (a wonderful underrated Danny Boyle film) and What Happens in Vegas, but never like this. One of the problems with this film is that her character, Elizabeth, is so self-centered and irritating that it's hard to root for her. But this film is taken just lightly enough to get away with it. Jake Kasdan (Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, Orange County) is one of the better comedy directors still working. He's never made a bad film, which is still the case (even after Bad Teacher). He probably will never make anything that comes close to the hysterical Walk Hard (starring the terrific John C. Reilly). The script is written by the team of Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg. They've combined to write 15 episodes for The Office, as well as 2009's Year One. Much like Year One, this film has it's brief moments, but it eventually falls short of expectations. Eisenberg has a small role in this film, and you'll probably recognize him from Walk Hard.

One of the glaring problems with Bad Teacher are the miscast actors. I still don't know what Justin Timberlake (The Social Network, Black Snake Moan) was doing in this film, but he wasn't the only one. Diaz plays Elizabeth Halsey, a gold-digging middle school teacher. She breezes through an entire year at John Adams Middle School (JAMS) without doing much work. She announces that she will be leaving JAMS after just one year, but nobody really seems to notice or care.

Elizabeth is engaged to a rich doofus (Nat Faxon), but he breaks the engagement when him and his mother become suspicious of her ulterior motives. There's no denying that she hates his guts and is only with him because of his money. He was supposed to be her ticket out, so now she must go back to JAMS for another exciting school year. She hates her co-workers, she hates her students and she hates her boring adult life. Her new goal that she sets for herself is a new pair of breasts, but that will cost her over $10,000 and she obviously doesn't have that kind of cash lying around.

The classroom across the hall is run by the annoying Amy Squirrel (Lucy Punch). Amy wants to be buddy-buddy with Elizabeth, but Elizabeth shoos her away like an aggravating fly. Meanwhile, the physical education teacher, Russell (Jason Segel), tries his hardest to get a date with the blonde bombshell. He's not her type, mainly because he doesn't make a million dollars annually. Elizabeth often eats lunch with the aging Lynn (Phyllis Smith from "The Office"), also a fellow teacher. She's not afraid to get provocative and grotesque around Lynn. She's also not afraid to curse in front of the kids, which they find oddly un-amusing.

Elizabeth comes into work hungover on a regular basis, and keeps a secret stash of alcohol in her desk (not to mention marijuana). All they practically do in the classroom is watch movies that may or may not be educational. The principal of JAMS is the dolphin loving Wally Snur (John Michael Higgins). Wally is oblivious to Elizabeth's god-awful teaching methods because of her bright smile and her stupid dolphin stories. Meanwhile, Elizabeth shares an apartment with an overweight weirdo named Kirk (Eric Stonestreet from "Modern Family"). They have an odd, but rather hilarious relationship.

Things begin to change when pretty-boy Scott (Timberlake) comes to town. Scott is the new substitute teacher at JAMS, but he happens to be extremely rich. So, for obvious reasons, Elizabeth wants him. She believes that he'll only want a relationship with her if she gets a boob-job. They get along well enough, but Scott and Amy start to get pretty chummy and eventually start dating. Elizabeth begins raising money pretty vigorously for that boob-job. She puts on a car wash fundraiser at the school, where she dresses a lot like Daisy Duke. This is one of the funnier scenes of the film as she puts on a show for all the boys.

She's slowly making money, but she's still a long way off. She soon catches word that the classroom that scores the highest on the yearly state test will get a check for $5,700 (which will go to the teacher). Bingo! Her new project is to get these kids to put up big scores. After a few months of actual hard work she realizes that this classroom of flunkies just simply isn't smart enough to test well. Ipso-facto, she must steal the actual test so the kids can memorize each and every answer. This idea has been done to death over the years, which doesn't help this films originality.

Her relationship with Amy has gotten ugly as they now hate each others guts with an extreme passion. It even comes down to rubbing poison-ivy on an apple, which Amy eventually eats (yikes). Elsewhere, Elizabeth sets up a meeting with a state official named Carl (Thomas Lennon). She easily seduces Carl into his office and drugs him. She then copies the test answers. A few months pass, the kids take the test, and vuala...they get the highest test scores in the county. Say hello to five grand! This Elizabeth is quite the lovable character, isn't she?

Everything seems to finally be going her way for once (which is a shame). However, Amy begins putting the pieces together as she suspects Elizabeth of wrong-doing. Will she get away with it, or has her luck run out? Will she ever get her boob-job? Will she ever seduce Scott into her bedroom? You'll have to check this film out to learn the answers to these extraordinary questions.

Cameron Diaz is funny enough and somehow finds a way to be likable, but the script is as hit-and-miss as they come. Jason Segel (Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Knocked Up) needed a much bigger part; he was barely on the screen. The film seemed more enjoyable when he was seen and heard. Timberlake is absolutely atrocious in his role. That's not to say I don't think he's a decent actor, but he was awfully miscast. His character just isn't funny, period. Lucy Punch (Dinner for Schmucks, Untitled) is effective enough as the annoying antagonist, but I can't help but think she was also miscast. There is a small scene with Rick Overton (Dinner for Schmucks, The Informant!) that's absolutely hilarious, thanks to him. I found myself laughing at the small things rather than the big gags, which isn't abnormal.

I found the music (composed by Michael Andrews) rather good, which helped a bit. This is the perfect example of a comedy film that you can skip at the theaters and rent on DVD. It's occasionally funny, but the predictable script and the all-too-often unfunny gags hold it down. Why does every film have to have a predictable, cheesy ending? It never fails. Originality is a ghost town.
C+