Southern Fried Movie Review: "Bad Teacher"

Sometimes I make the mistake of reading reviews before I actually go see a flick and it sets me up for how good or bad I think a movie is going to be. Bad Teacher really took a beat down so after sitting through endless summer previews and willing the movie to hurry up and start so I could run home and write my own scathing review, I have to say to hell with the haters, I loved this movie!

In Bad Teacher, Cameron Diaz plays the lead role of hard drinking, gold-digging Elizabeth Helsey, an ex-teacher that finds herself thrown back into the classroom after her fiancé (and his overbearing mother) discovers that she is just in it for the money and dumps her. Diaz takes a lot of flak for this role. Some say she wasn't "edgy" enough while others say she over played the part but I think she was absolutely perfect! She wasn't airbrushed or botoxed and I could almost imagine I smelled the alcohol on her breath. I felt she did a fantastic job of playing an aging beauty that has been ridden hard and put away wet.

Her fellow teacher and nemesis, Amy Squirrel (played by Lucy Punch) is the one that really made this movie for me. Her comedic pairing with Diaz is a riot and she takes what could have been a small insignificant role and kicks crazy up to a whole 'nother level!

Of COURSE the plot of a pot-smoking; foul-mouthed teacher hustling and scheming for money to buy fake tits to land her another sugar daddy was unrealistic, but that's kind of what made the movie so good. It's called a comedy people!!! Umm...I hate to break this to you but cars don't just blow up when you shoot at them and Star Wars didn't really happen either. Save your pompous outrage for the remake ofFootloose, you're gonna' need it!

There were two things about this movie that went a little wrong for me though. I couldn't wrap my head around Justin Timberlake in the role of Scott Delacorte, the substitute teacher and heir that Diaz and Punch's characters are cat-fighting over. I don't know if I can really put what bothered me in to words but I didn't like the pairing of Sandra Bullock with Ryan Reynolds in The Proposal either. It was too "mother son-ish" for me. I also concur that Jason Segal's role as gym teacher Russell Gettis could have been better developed. It left me a little disappointed but in the end I guess it all came together.

Listen, "Terms of Endearment" it ain't, so if you're going to see this movie for some sort of Oscar winning performance, don't even bother. But if you want to see a great summer movie and not worry about all that pretentious crap Bad Teacher gets and A+ in my book!

Links from The Internet Movie Database