Bad Teacher (2011)

Starring: Cameron Diaz, Justin Timberlake, Jason Segel, Lucy Punch

Directed by: Jake Kadsen

Written by: Lee Eisenberg, Gene Stupnitsky

Duration: 1hr 32 mins

Rating: 2.5 out of 5

Here's an odd case:  a movie that borrows the concept of another movie (typically trusted/good natured figure behaving badly) and switches the profession and gender.  Bad Teacher is in no way related to the hilarious Bad Santa, but nevertheless has the good grace to acknowledge its debt to the 2003 film via its familiar title.  That gives credit in my book, but dignity alone isn’t quite enough to save an ultimately disappointing comedy.

BAD... OR, AT LEAST, INADEQUATE

Of course, Terry Zwigoff’s dark masterpiece is an unrealistic bar to reach, and unlike some cases, the relationship to an earlier movie does not directly hamper ones enjoyment.  Sure, its idea is no longer original, but it’s still a good ‘un (the film makers may have also been inspired by the heavy-drinking, -smoking, -swearing educators in the Channel 4 comedy/drama series Teachers – unsuccessfully ported to the US in 2006).

 

MY, WHAT AN APPEALING WOMAN

So where does Bad Teacher fall short?  Something Bad Santa does well is make an unlikable protagonist sympathetic.  Willie, the heavy-drinking, foul-mouthed, antisocial antihero, is a loser, but ultimately a pitiful and harmless (except to himself) individual who’s been beaten up by life.  Bad Teacher, on the other hand, centres around Cameron Diaz’s Elizabeth Halsey, a selfish, shallow junior high teacher.   She turns up to class hungover, puts on movies every lesson, doesn’t know the students’ names, that sort of thing.  Lord knows how she successfully got through her training to become qualified in the first place.  Anyway, Halsey’s mission in life is to marry a rich man who will provide for her every whim, a plan that’s working out fine until her meal-ticket fiancée comes to his senses and leaves her.  Dejected, she soon finds an alternate target in Scott (Justin Timberlake), the new cover teacher and heir of a men’s watches empire. 
 

But to snare her new benefactor, she decides she needs to get her breasts enlarged to maximise her appeal, and so starts raising the funds by scamming the school and parents out of money in any way she can.  When the film eventually runs out of steam with that angle, it introduces a new plot development:  a competition with a convenient cash prize for the teacher whose class gets the best scores in the state, and so Halsey changes tact and for the rest of the duration the laughs are wrung out of her struggles to suddenly become the model teacher.

UGH, JUST GIVE IT UP, LOVE...

There are two main problems with this film, the biggest being Diaz herself.  All the men fancy her, despite her being thoroughly unpleasant – and on a personal level, I don’t find the woman to be particularly attractive, so when she repeatedly gets what she wants through manipulating a succession of salivating males, I found there very little to relate to.  Seeing Jason Seagal’s likable gym teacher embarrass himself by fawning all over her is just cringe-worthy.  This is just personal taste, sure (what isn’t?), but since so much of Bad Teacher hinges on Diaz’s appeal, the film can’t help but fall flat if the viewer doesn’t buy into it.  Talking of flat, the idea that having her breasts ‘enhanced’ into immobile silicone orbs will increase her attractiveness is also not something I go along with, either.  

Diaz doesn’t have the charm to pull off her worst behaviour, antics that include forcing drugs onto her butter-wouldn’t-melt middle-aged co-worker  (“Just fucking do it, weed is awesome!”);  critically assessing the youngster under her charge as ‘losers’, ‘freaks’ and so on; and stealing the proceeds from the school’s charity carwash – and her entry to the annuls of cinematic auto-sudding scenes (Cool Hand Luke, Wild Things, One Night At McColls) is anti-climatic, too, Tony Scott-style magic hour lighting and excessive slow motion substituting genuine sexiness.  

MEH...

The film also insists on laying on awful plinky-plunky Desperate Housewives-style piano cues for whenever Diaz is being manipulative, completely diluting the intended deliciousness of her scheming.

The second problem is that too much of the humour revolves around sourpuss Halsey being surrounded by extremely perky and jolly characters, so Diaz can pull a variety of unimpressed faces.  Fair enough, it’s an amusing enough concept.  But after the same routine has been repeated over and over, all we’re really left with is a film made up of annoying, over-enthusiastic jobsworths and do-gooders, with Diaz in the middle (the game Segel is the exception, but he is so under-used it’s a wonder he even bothered turning up).

RIVERS WILL BE CRIED

Timberlake does well with his anti-sex symbol role, going as far from his 'sexy back' image as imaginable and showing an admirable self-irony; coupled with his solid work in The Social Network, JT looks to be making a successful singer-to-actor transition.  There’s also a good running gag where Segel takes advantage of Timberlake’s earnestness, especially in a scene at a museum where he keeps contradicting himself and Timberlake’s flaccid Scott blindly keeps on agreeing.

AN ANNOYING CHARACTER MADE BEARABLE (JUST)

But it's Judy Punch, as the earnest ‘friend across the hall’ Miss Squirrel, who is by far the best thing in the film, effectively playing the story's antagonist – although with a lead as unpleasant as Diaz, I ended up siding with her.  She goes from do-gooder to Halsey’s nemesis, seeking to foil her colleague’s increasingly erratic scams and prevent her from stealing Timberlake from under her nose.  Punch – a familiar face on British TV and now making waves Stateside – does solid comic work throughout, and that she shines despite being saddled with the most annoying of all the annoying characters is to her infinite credit.

To be fair, Bad Teacher does avoid the temptation to give Halsey a full turnaround to remorseful sainthood, which would have been too much.  We don’t want to see a neat, comfortable character arc; we just want it to be worth spending an hour and a half of our time in her company.  Sadly, it isn’t.  **1/2

Hot Rod (2007)

Starring:  Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, 

Isla Fisher, Bill Hader, Danny McBride, Ian McShane

Directed by: Akiva Schaffer

Written by: Pam Brady

Duration: 1hr 24 mins

Rating: 4 out of 5

ROD MAKES A MIGHTY LEAP

Comedy is the most subjective genre of them all.  It’s nigh on impossible to tell if you’re going to like one before actually watching it.  Previews are no real indication – are all the funny bits in the trailer, or are they just a hint of the hilarity to come?  Past form is also no real guarantee – I’ve been recommended things that well-informed friends thought I would love that I ended up hating, and the reverse is just as true.

I’ll give you the example of Will Ferrell, who Rod Hot was originally written for.  I love Blades of Glory, but don’t like Anchorman.  I thought he was hilarious in Wedding Crashers, tedious in Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby.  His work in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back made me giggle, but his role in The Other Guys left me grimacing.  So do I like Will Ferrell movies?  The best answer I can give is: sometimes.

SAMBERG:  FUNNY FACE

Do I like sports comedies, the sub-genre that Hot Rod occupies? Not often.  Dodgeball and BASEketball are classics, but many other attempts, like Balls of Fury and Semi-Pro, are less successful. 

The point I’m trying to make is that there was every chance that I wouldn’t like Hot Rod.  It had been compared in reviews to Anchorman (which most people find hilarious – bafflingly so, to me) in its base of improvisational clowning between four friends, as well as Napoleon Dynamite (the appeal of which eluded me) for its geeky and misanthropic lead.

And yet somehow the elements combined to make Hot Rod one of the most consistently funny films I have seen for a long, long time.

HADER, MCBRIDE AND TACCONE OFFER UP AN
EMBARRASSMENT OF COMEDY RICHES

For a start, it’s chock-a-block with funny people.  I hadn’t heard of comedy troupe the Lonely island – director Akiva Schaffer and actors Andy Samberg and Jorma Taccone – beforehand, but after seeing this I checked out all their spoof music videos on You Tube (personal favourites: Jizzin my Pants, I Just Had Sex and the sublime I’m on a Boat) and am now a firm fan.  Both Samberg and Taccone simply have funny faces; the former especially has me in stitches with the merest change of expression.  They’re joined by an impressive rosta of rib-tickling talent: Danny McBride, Bill Hader, Will Arnett, Chris Parnell.  We also get a hilariously gruff turn from Ian McShane, sweet support from the gorgeous Isla Fisher, and a bizarre bit-part from a character named Richardson that defies description.

ARNETT ADDS ANOTHER TO HIS IMPRESSIVE
ROSTER OF ON-SCREEN ARSEHOLES

Hot Rod’s plot concerns Evel Knievel wannabe Rod Kimble (Samberg), a 20-something delusional loser who spends his free time concocting stunts on his moped that invariably end in hurting himself and impressing no one.  Rod and his half-brother Kevin (Taccone) live with their mother (a game Sissy Spacek) and Rod’s step father, McShane’s Frank, who delights in reminding Rod of what a joke he is.  When the old man has a heart attack that needs $70,000 worth of surgery, Rod decides to jump fifteen buses as a fundraising stunt.

LOVEJOY WAS NEVER THIS AGGRESSIVE

So far, so conventional.  But Hot Rod has a subversive spirit that makes the well-worn premise feel fresh.  Rod isn’t motivated by some saccharine bond or sense of duty, he only wants to cure Frank because if he dies before Rod’s been able to beat him in a fight, then his nemesis will go to the grave still thinking he was a pussy.  “I’m gonna get you better,” Rod tells the smirking Frank. “And then I'm gonna beat you to death!”

It spoofs ‘80s era sports movies, but not directly or cheaply; instead, it uses garish fashions, the funniest training montage ever committed to film, some ace use of cheese rockers Europe and, in a stand out scene, a random group rendition of John Farnham’s You’re the Voice.

In fact, random is a good word to use to describe Hot Rod.  Credited writer Pam Brady is a veteran of South Park and brings with her that show’s anarchic sensibility:  the ‘Cool beans’ sketch is now legendary, but there is also George Michael karaoke to an audience of stuffed animals, a Bill Hader acid trip and much more besides.     

PLEASED TO SEE THAT HULK HOGAN WASN'T LYING
WHEN HE CLAIMED THAT HULKAMANIA WOULD LIVE FOREVER

Whilst I found the randomness of Anchorman jarring, here it really worked for me.  Maybe it’s because I felt that Hot Rod’s central foursome were far more endearing than the shouty, obnoxiousness of the broadly-sketched KVWN-TV Channel 4 Evening News team; maybe it’s because I prefer ‘80s references to ‘70s ones; maybe my expectations were raised too much by Anchorman’s reputation.  Who knows – it’s hard to pin down the exact reason, but in the same way that a joke loses its magic through over-analysis, Hot Rod simply exists, and the world is a funnier place because of it.  ****

Scott Pilgrim vs the World (2010)

Starring: Michael Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, 
Kieran Culkin, Anna Kendrick, Jason Schwartzman

Directed by: Edgar Wright

Written by: Edgar Wright, Michael Bacall

Duration: 1hr 52 mins

Rating: 2 out of 5

I really wanted to like Scott Pilgrim vs the World.  I love Spaced, and thoroughly enjoyed Edgar Wright’s first two movies.  Both Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz took elements from Wright’s seminal ‘90s TV show and gave them their own platform to breathe: Tim’s Playstation-all-nighter-induced zombie fantasies for Shaun, the John Woo shootout tribute episode for Fuzz.

SPACED:  SUCCESSFULLY TOWED A DELICATE LINE 

Scott Pilgrim is effectively an extension of the Spaced sequence where Daisy and Tim’s argument is intercut with footage of a Tekken bout.  Wright married this concept to existing material – Bryan Lee O'Malley’s series of Scott Pilgrim graphic novels – and hired leading man-child of the moment Michael Cera to star.  Learning that a movie is based on some obscure comic book doesn’t usually fill me with optimism, but hey, A History of Violence turned out pretty good.  I’ve enjoyed Cera’s work ever since the peerless Arrested Development; I grew up straining my thumbs on the NES and Mega Drive; and was suitably excited by the prospect of Edgar Wright’s big(ger) budgeted debut across the pond, so went into Scott Pilgrim vs the World with an open mind.

I tried to like it.  I really, really did.  But I hated it.

SOMEWHAT OVER THE TOP

Spaced was geeky.  Very geeky.  The DVD has the option to display a ‘homage-o-meter’ on screen that points out all the references, and when I watched both series this way I recognised the vast majority of them – so I guess that makes me pretty geeky, too.  But I’m not comfortable embracing the whole ‘geek chic’ thing.  I don’t have a sci-fi TV series obsession, I’m not into fantasy, I don’t love Spielberg or Star Wars, and I certainly would never attend a fans’ convention.  There’s nothing wrong with any of these things, but they’re a bit beyond me. Frankly, pure geekiness makes me feel queasy; I find it all just too childish and removed from reality – an arrested development, if you will.  Spaced came close to being too geeky but never crossed the line as it always had more down-to-earth and ‘adult’ material to supplement the nerdy stuff: the clubbing episode, casual drug usage, Mike’s guns, going to the pub.

Scott Pilgrim vs the World is like Spaced but with the geekiness undiluted.  Watching it is like downing a whole bottle of pure blackcurrant squash in one go, and I felt suitably nauseous from start to finish.

LET BATTLE COMMENCE... IF YOU REALLY MUST

I can’t help thinking that it was Jessica Hynes’ (nee Stephenson) matronly influence on the set of Spaced that stopped it from erupting into a fully-blown geekgasm.  I can picture Edgar and Simon trying to shovel more and more references, meta devices and visual trickery into an episode, and Jessica rolling her eyes and tutting, “Now come on boys, you’re just getting a bit silly now.”

Because with Scott Pilgrim, the shackles are off.  And it’s exhausting.

STUFF IS HAPPENING IN THIS SCREENCAP

The plot, if you must know, concerns our hero’s quest to win the heart of the gorgeous Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), a task that, for some ambiguous reason, requires him to defeat her seven ‘evil’ exes in hyper-reality Street Fighter-style battles involving huge swords, migraine-inducing visual effects and a general wealth of video game touches (finishing moves, power ups, energy bars, all that). 

I can sum this movie up in one word: annoying.  Within the first five minutes we’re introduced to Ellen Wong’s bubbly and hyperactive Knives Chau, possibly the most irritating love interest in the history of cinema.  I think we’re supposed to find her cute and adorable, but instead the effect is that she makes Michael Cera’s character seem like an idiot for putting up with her for more than one second.

BUBBLY, QUIRKY, KOOKY...  ALL SYNONYMS FOR "ANNOYING"

In fact, our hero is consistently portrayed as a bit thick, which is fine, but Wright and co-writer Michael Bacall make Scott's dimness so over the top it becomes completely ridiculous and alienating.  When he orders a CD online he doesn’t grasp that it won’t arrive instantly, and so sits cross-legged staring at the front door.  Hahaha, what a hilarious buffoon.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead is lovely, and I can understand any young man becoming besotted with her.  But her Ramona is so annoyingly morose and aloof that she lacks any of the sparkle that turns mere physical attractiveness into something magical.  Plus the way her hair kept on changing colour reminded me of the excellent Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, making me wish I was instead watching a movie that dealt with adult relationships in an adult way.

COME ON LOVE, CRACK A SMILE

Kieran Culkin’s flatmate is an annoying, smug know-it-all.  Anna Kendrick portrays his female equivalent; Kendrick is an actress who has aggravated me in everything I’ve seen her in, reminding me of a condescending younger sister who’s full of opinions and self-importance whilst actually knowing jack about life.  Which is exactly what she plays here.

The members of Pilgrim’s band, the Super Mario Brothers referencing Bob-Ombs, are all annoying, portrayed either as whiney emasculated males or Alison Pill’s sullen and acid-tongued bitch.

A MILLION MONKEYS RE-WRITING A MILLION THESAURUSES COULDN'T 

COME CLOSE TO DESCRIBING HOW MUCH THIS MAN IRRITATES ME

Then, for the pièce de résistance, we have Jason Schwartzman as the final boss.  I can’t stand Jason Schwartzman.  He was a nauseating brat in Rushmore and has since honed an obnoxious, hateable screen persona that gives Bradley Cooper a run for his money.  Spun, I Heart Huckabees, Funny People…  I wanted to strangle him every time. And with this flick he rises to his mugging, scenery-chewing, gurning peak.

BRANDON ROUTH VS HENRY CAVILL WOULD HAVE BEEN SPICIER

Pluses?  Well, Chris Evans displays a nice line of self-mocking irony that the rest of this earnest and eager affair could have seriously done with. And Brandon Routh’s amusing superhero vegan manages to both bring to mind his sorely-underrated Superman turn and remind us that he really should be a bigger star.

When it comes down to it, Scott Pilgrim’s biggest problem is that it’s a musical, with fighting instead of singing and dancing.  I hate musicals.  An ex-girlfriend of mine once chirped how wonderful it would be if real life was a musical, with everyone bursting into spontaneous choreographed song and dance numbers all the time.  It wouldn’t, it would be awful.  I cringe so hard when I’m forced to sit through a musical that my face has lines imprinted on it for several subsequent days.  Exactly like my experience watching Scott Pilgrim vs the World.

IF THIS REALLY WAS A VIDEO GAME, I DON'T THINK MANY
PEOPLE WOULD CHOOSE TO PLAY AS WET DOOFUS SCOTT

Wright is obviously a highly creative and visually adept filmmaker.  I just hope next time he eases up on the energy drinks and rediscovers the balance of nerdiness and maturity that made his earlier work so unique and enjoyable.  **

Bad Santa (2003)

Starring: Billy Bob Thornton, Tony Cox, 
Lauren Graham, Bernie Mac, John Ritter

Directed by: Terry Zwigoff

Written by: Glenn Ficarra, John Requa

Duration: 1hr 31mins

Rating: 4 out of 5

It’s the most wonderful time of the year, the season to be jolly, with everyone rocking around the Christmas tree… and so on and so forth.  Fair enough, I’m not disputing that. 

QUITE THE OPPOSITE OF JOLLY

But there is another side to the coin.  The pressure to spend spend spend, simmering family tension erupting into full-on feuds, the stress of trying to find 'the perfect gift’ (just one of the myths brazenly excreted by the annual advertising blitz)... plus the expectation that everyone should be so cheerful can itself become a burden.  For those who aren’t having a wonderful, jolly, rocking time, the surrogate feelings of loneliness and despair can escalate to a wintery nadir.

HO-HO-HUUUURRRGHH...

When we first meet Willie (Billy Bob Thornton), Bad Santa's anti-hero, he’s a snowflake’s breadth from that place himself.  Sitting alone in a bar, dressed in the familiar red and white outfit post-shift, Willie downs drink after drink, glancing with a mixture of longing and weary disdain at the groups of merry drinkers that surround him, whilst recounting his shitty life in voiceover monologue.  He then staggers outside into a snow-filled alley to vomit, in the one image that sums Bad Santa up.  At least, it would, if this movie was the one-joke affair that it could easily have been.  But it’s so much more than that.

CAN'T BLAME THE KIDS FOR THAT STAIN...

Willie has a seasonal scam: every December, he and his three-and-a-half foot partner Marcus (Tony Cox) gain employment at a different mall as Santa and Elf respectively.  Once they’ve sussed the joint out, they rip it off after hours, divide the loot, and go their separate ways ‘til targeting a new city next year.  This time round, however, proves to be anything but routine, as Willie gets involved with Lauren Graham’s perky waitress with a Santa fetish, unwittingly becomes a father figure for a bullied dim-bulb kid (Brett Kelly), and has to contend with Bernie Mac’s corrupt head of security and John Ritter’s jittery department store manager.

PERKINESS  =  OFF THE SCALE

Despite appearances, Bad Santa really is a traditional festive movie.  It’s about a cynical loner who discovers the true meaning of Christmas – this may be by way of pissing his pants, having sex in changing rooms and kicking a little person in the balls, but it’s a familiar, Grinch-esque journey all the same.  Willie is not an easy character to root for at first glance – he is, after all, a profane, anti-social, career criminal.  But loathe as we may be to admit it, there is a bit of Willie in all of us whenever we get overwhelmed by the demands of the season and feel like drinking ourselves into oblivion to block the whole ordeal out.  His nonchalant reaction to wetting himself and his instinctive reach for a flask of bourbon as soon as the last child jumps off his knee mark Willie out as an alcoholic early on; maybe it’s his fault his life has turned out this way, maybe it isn't – either way, the man is obviously sick and deeply, deeply unhappy.  As the film progresses, we find ourselves pitying him, and then warming to his misanthropy.  He’s self-serving, but not cruel; detached, but not sociopathic.  And he may be surly, but at least he isn’t fake, pretending to be happy or forcing everyone else to be.

BERNIE MAC'S IS ONLY THE SECOND SURLIEST FACE ON SHOW

Willie’s bad-tempered partner Marcus – certainly the brains in their little crime enterprise – typifies the kind of abuse the world has dished out to Willie his whole life.  “Your soul is dogshit, everything about you is ugly,” he chides him during one of many confrontations. “You’re a total loser, Willie – and you know it!” He’s right: Willie finally relents and goes for the old exhaust pipe/hose exit strategy.  But what stops him?  It’s realising that he has to stick up for the much-maligned kid; no one else will, like no one ever looked out for Willie his whole life.  Thus begins his first step on the road to redemption, made all the more gratifying since he’s had to come so far from the brink.

"CAN I FIX YOU SOME SANDWICHES?"

I shouldn’t neglect to stress quite how funny Bad Santa is.  The tone is blacker than the darkest lump of Christmas coal, the dialogue as hilarious as Ethan and Joel Coen's names on the credits (as executive producers) would suggest, and there are skilled comic turns by BBT, Cox, and the late duo of Mac and Ritter.  But the key point is that Bad Santa is a unique beast, an endlessly quotable Christmas movie that has just as much heart as spite, and that delivers the desired yuletide glow without the all-too standard side order of nauseating schmaltz.  ****

The Hangover Part II (2011)

Starring: Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, 
Zach Galifianakis, Ken Jeong

Directed by: Todd Phillips

Written by: Todd Phillips, 
Scot Armstrong, Craig Mazin 

Duration:  1hr 42mins

Rating: 2 out of 5

AND AT LEAST THEY HAD THE
DECENCY TO ADD TIM CURRY

Like many people, I went to see The Hangover in 2009 and had a great time.  Then I caught it again on DVD, and found it significantly less funny.  Still an original idea well executed, but definitely not the comedy masterpiece its reputation would have you believe.

Fast forward two years, and after sitting through the dreadful Hangover Part II I left the cinema with no intention of even granting it a second viewing.

It’s the most shamelessly fast-tracked, flat-packed sequel since Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, and the most blatant excuse for a cast and crew to have a paid exotic holiday since Ocean’s Twelve.

When it comes to sequels, the best follow a successful formula to give us more of what we liked before whilst still moving the story and characters on – the first two Terminators and the Ghostbusters films spring to mind.

NO WAIT, IT IS DIFFERENT:  I FORGOT
ABOUT GALIFIANAKIS'  SHAVED HEAD

Others, like the specimen we have here, are just lazy cash-ins.  The screenplay is a real  find/replace affair: Vegas/Bangkok; groom/bride’s brother; baby/monkey; missing tooth/tattoo; prostitute/transvestite stripper.  That’s when it’s not just copying the story beats from the original wholesale: Phil's ‘I’m sorry’ phone call opening; Alan drugging the group; the final act sequence of high speed chase to wedding, followed by Stu finally standing up for himself, followed by the group looking over dodgy photos from the night before,

JUSTIN BARTHA: MIFFED TO WIN THE AWARD FOR
"MOST REDUNDANT SEQUEL RETURN OF ALL TIME"

None of this would be a problem if there were some funny jokes, but there aren't. Instead it just tenuously rolls out Mr. Chow again so Ken Jeong can do his same old zany shtick, and relies on predictable crudity and racial stereotypes with no wit or imagination (they’re in Bangkok… how long before a ladyboy gag? Yawn).  Worse still is the pace: a race-against-time film like this needs some urgency and sense of momentum, but the film feels bleary and sluggish – the kind of hangover where you don’t want to get out of bed, not the energetic and exasperatingly funny type that the first movie managed to nail in its strongest moments.  In fact at times The Hangover Part II is actually pretty boring, lumbering as it does from one contrived scene to the next.  And you know you’re in trouble when having Paul Giamatti turn up in your movie actually makes it worse.

Bradley Cooper delivers his usual asshole screen persona, Ed Helms is the wimpy one again, and as for Zach Galifianakis… why are we supposed to like this Alan character?  Because he’s petulant and childish?  Because he’s fat and has a beard?  Because he uses the word ‘retard’, and improbably pronounces it wrong?  It’s a mystery to me.

"WE HAD A SICK NIGHT, BITCHES!"

Dubbing the movie ‘part two’ is one of Todd Phillips and company's worst crimes – if they'd called it The Hangover Again (or rather, Hungover Again), then all concerned could have made a joke out of it being exactly the same as the first one, the same shit happening to the same guys twice. Then maybe, maybe it could have worked in a self-aware, so-bad-it’s-good way.  As it stands, I feel cheated by all concerned, and in my mind Phillips has relegated himself from a serious challenger to Judd Apatow to nothing but a cynical hack.  When the inevitable third entry lurches around, I don't reckon I'll bother with it at all.  **1/2

The Beaver (2011)

Starring: Mel Gibson, Jodie Foster, 
Anton Yelchin, Jennifer Lawrence 

Directed by: Jodie Foster

Written by: Kyle Killen

Duration: 1hr 31mins

Rating: 4 out of 5

Wanna rent a movie tonight?  Great, what do you fancy?  Oh look, how about this offbeat comedy about depression?  No?  Wait, where you going…?

SPOT THE DIFFERENCE...?

The Beaver was at different times a star vehicle for both Jim Carrey and Steve Carell, and it’s easy to see how it would have been a different beast with either funnyman as the lead.  No doubt light-hearted schizophrenic hand puppet antics would have come to the forefront, and soul-crushing desperation would have featured fleetingly, if at all. 

Enter Mel Gibson.  Now the script – one of the hottest in Hollywood, featured on its infamous Black List of best unproduced screenplays – was fated to take on a fiction-meets-reality status not seen since Mr & Mrs Smith merrily surfed the wave of Brangelina hysteria in 2005.  But the furore surrounding Gibson’s 2010 meltdown (racism, domestic abuse, leaked abusive answer machine messages) didn’t do Jodie Foster’s film any good and it suffered from a delayed and ultimately limited release.  Which is a real shame, as it’s an interesting oddity that deserves to be appreciated by a wider audience.

MEL HAS A RUDE AWAKENING

The fall-from-grace parallels mean that The Beaver’s story of a man who goes to the brink and claws his way back can’t help but be laced with irony.  Though it was filmed back in 2009 before any of the furore, it’s impossible to watch the movie without seeing Mel Gibson the man and not Walter Black the character.  But it remains a tortured and committed performance, superb irrespective of the meta element, and it made me bemoan how Mel has spent most of the last decade on the other side of the camera.  The amalgamation of star and material brings to mind Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler, and if he could get an Oscar nomination for that then, in a just world, Mel’s turn here would have gained the same recognition and subsequent catharsis.  As it stands, People magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive 1985 still has a long way to crawl to get public acceptance back.  

A CAREER IN CHILDREN'S ENTERTAINMENT SURELY BECKONS

Rooting through a dumpster at the end of another day of misery and despair, toy company head Walter finds a beaver hand puppet and blearily takes it with him to a motel, where he plans to finally end it all.  His suicide attempt fails, and as he lies prone on the floor, finally at rock bottom, he starts addressing himself through the puppet, a gruff and direct character named ‘the Beaver’, who tells him to get his act together (the fact that the Beaver talks with a thick Aussie accent adds another layer of meaning, since we could easily see this as Mel’s id coming through.  It would be interesting to know if this was a script decision, arose from Jodie Foster’s direction or was actually inspiration from Gibson himself).  From then on he will only communicate through his felt friend, and the psychological distance allows Walter to reclaim some self-respect, turn his ailing company around, and go some way to reconnecting with his wife (Foster) and sons (Anton Yelchin and Riley Thomas Stewart). 

I applaud the film for its sensitive handling of mental illness.  This isn’t an Awakenings-style weepie, or the flat out farce that you would have expected from Messers Carrey or Carell.  The candid insight into the pain and loneliness of depression and the inherent funniness of the movie’s concept combine to create a measured, thoughtful tone.  Walter’s unconventional redemption gives the film a streak of gallows humour that means it never becomes grim or preachy: the failed suicide is played for dark laughs; Walter’s toy company makes its comeback by selling Beaver products; and the simple sight of man and puppet furiously arguing is hilariously absurd.

"YOU KNOW WHAT'S CRAZY? WALKING AROUND
EVERY DAY MISERABLE IS CRAZY... 
CRAZY IS PRETENDING TO BE HAPPY"

One blot is that nearly equal attention is devoted to Yelchin and Jennifer Lawrence’s dull teenage subplot.  The running time is slight in the first place, and since his reappearance on screen turned out to be such an unexpected treat, we could have done with more Mel for our money. Nevertheless, The Beaver remains an original, funny, and ultimately quite moving experience.  ****