After he's
humiliated in front of his dream girl—and the rest of his high school for
good measure—freshman Nate Hartley isn't sure what to do about his
continued harassment by über-bully Alex Frost. Frost, recapturing some of the
dead-eyed malevolence he brought to the Columbine-inspired Gus Van Sant movie Elephant, is both bigger and quicker and completely
relentless. Hartley has underdeveloped muscles and an overdeveloped conscience
working against him, and Drillbit Taylor pauses uncomfortably as its hero realizes he can't
think himself out of this impossible situation.
Unfortunately,
it's one of the few moments to ring true in this Judd Apatow-produced comedy,
written by Seth Rogen, Kristofor Brown, and Edmond Dantes (better known as the
semi-reclusive John Hughes). Hartley plays one of three bullied kids—Troy
Gentile and David Dorfman play his sidekicks—who enlist a homeless man
(Owen Wilson) whom they believe to be an experienced security expert to protect
them from Frost and his toadie. Their plan goes predictably, and slowly, awry,
but not before Wilson strikes up a romance with a pretty, love-starved English
teacher played by Leslie Mann.
Like most
of Drillbit Taylor,
that relationship sounds like it ought to generate more laughs than it does.
Wilson's funny. Mann's funny. But paired together here, nothing works, in part
because Wilson never sinks into the part of a man who seems sweetly addled in
some scenes, oily and manipulative in others, and lacking the usual Wilson in
all. The kids, on the other hand, do have clearly defined characters. Too bad
they're defined by last year's Superbad. The soft-spoken Hartley steps into the Michael Cera
role. Gentile, who's twice played a young Jack Black, fills in for Jonah Hill,
and Dorfman, best known as the creepy kid from The Ring, plays a character
too-nerdy-for-the-nerds who needs only a Hawaiian driver's license to be
mistaken for McLovin.
The
familiarity wouldn't matter if the gags weren't so belabored and, thanks to the
PG-13 rating, neutered. And apart from a few scenes, nothing feels all that
true to life. It's a tough call as to which is more awkward: the silly battle
royale finale or the nerd vs. bully schoolyard rap-off. At least the latter
establishes a sense of rhythm and urgency and lands a punchline or two, feats
the film around it rarely achieves.