School for Scoundrels
Directed by: Todd Phillips
Starring: Billy Bob Thornton, Jon Heder, Jacinda Barrett, Matt Walsh, Horatio Sanz, Todd Louiso
Rated: PG-13 for language, crude and sexual content, and some violence.
Parental Notes: This is a safe movie for teens and mature preteens, though offhand mentions of rape may make it inappropriate for some.
One of the nuggets of advice Dr. P (Billy Bob Thornton “Bad News Bears”) gives his students early on in “School for Scoundrels” is “lie, lie, and lie some more.” They are in his class to learn from him how to be lions — confident, attractive men — instead of the mice they are. As Dr. P puts it, losers miss the shots they take, but these guys don’t even take shots to begin with. “School for Scoundrels” follows Roger (Jon Heder, “Napoleon Dynamite”), who starts out as the worst guy in the class, and his progress through Dr. P’s challenges is both touching and hilarious.
Roger works as a meter maid in New York, and his entire life is one long string of humiliations. Heder is built for this kind of comedy, with his lanky frame and ability to look utterly helpless. When Roger’s third Little Brother in a row requests a new Big Brother, his buddy Ian (David Cross, “She’s the Man”) takes pity on him and gives him Dr. P’s phone number. The class, taught by Dr. P and his massive sidekick Lesher (Michael Clarke Duncan, “Talladega Nights”), involves everything from role-playing a date (with Lesher in drag as the girl) to playing paint ball out in the woods. One of their first assignments is to instigate a confrontation when ordered to via pager. Roger takes the opportunity to stand up to a bully at work, and gets his head stuffed in the toilet for his trouble.
Before long, though, Roger is at the head of the class. He manages to ask out his beautiful Australian neighbor, Amanda (Jacinda Barrett, “The Last Kiss”) and starts dating her. He gets his shoes back from some thugs who roughed him up and stole them. It’s interesting to see Heder show the change — Roger is still the same person he was before, but rather than backing down constantly he starts standing up for himself. Heder’s body language changes subtly, he tones down the fish-out-of-water gape his wide mouth has early in the film, and when he speaks, his tone of voice is a bit different. He could have made Roger a caricature here, but instead shows the change in little ways. Roger’s still Roger, he’s just a less wimpy version of himself.
But maybe he’s getting a little too confident. Ian says that the star student the year he took the class wound up completely destroyed by Dr. P. Roger is skeptical until he finds out Dr. P is dating Amanda too — and is a lot better at the game than Roger is. Thornton was made for this kind of role. He has the ability to portray the depths of self-loathing and depravity (“Bad Santa”), but here he’s taken a somewhat shallower version of that and glossed it over with a con man’s swagger. Even better, he’s able to show us the charming version of Dr. P (when he’s with Amanda) and make it clear that while it’s a good enough facade for Amanda to buy it, the familiar, despicable Dr. P is just under the surface.
The only major flaw in “School for Scoundrels” is a pair of subplots. There’s a recurrent suggestion that Lesher rapes the worst students in the class, and Diego (Horatio Sanz, “Rebound”), one of the students, is the victim of domestic abuse at the hands of his wife. Whenever either of these comes up, it’s treated as comedy. Domestic abuse and rape are, to my mind, too terrible to make jokes about unless they’re handled carefully, but this film uses them as throw-away gags. Fortunately, they are not constant topics here, but they do come up enough to spoil things for the sensitive.
That aside, “School for Scoundrels” is a highly entertaining film. Heder and Thornton turn in solid, well-timed performances that bring out plenty of laughs, and are supported by a bevy of character actors.