Bad Teacher needs summer school

There are good teachers and bad teachers and then there’s Elizabeth Halsey, played by Cameron Diaz. She doesn’t care about her students or adhering to the dress code. She’s the last person who should have any position of influence over the tender minds of the young.

Let’s also say that there are good movies and bad movies — there should be a special category of bad reserved for Bad Teacher, one of the worst movies ever. It’s so colossally bad it almost defies explanation. Its only redeeming quality is that it is possibly the best example of Murphy’s Law — everything that can go wrong does. Even moments that are meant to be humorously awkward end up awkward and distinctly not humorous.

It’s 92 minutes of jaw-dropping film history. If movies could receive rankings with negative numbers, Bad Teacher would be a classic case.

The only redeeming value is that, in this day and age of so many bad movies coming out that you lose track of where the ultimate depth of badness should be, you could refer to this movie and Showgirls as the ultimate zero points.

It’s incredibly difficult to know even where to start describing all of the problems with Bad Teacher so I’ll just let it all out haphazardly in a big incongruous mess, just like the story and plot of this abhorrent abomination of time, money and talent.

Halsey strives for the simple life of getting hitched to a sugar daddy. Just as the school year ends and she prepares to marry into a wealthy family, he calls off the wedding, leaving her broke and alone, back at square one. She goes back into teaching after the summer just to get by. It’s not her favourite activity because it doesn’t make her much money and it interferes with her drinking and drug habit.

All the while, she harbours this elaborate fantasy of getting plastic surgery so she can have a better shot of bedding the straight-laced new teacher Scott Delacorte (Justin Timberlake). Because she is so single-minded, she also ignores all of the advances of Russell Gettis (Jason Segel) who might not have the money but at least he’s got a sense of humour. It’s too bad Delacorte is also being pursued by colleague Amy Squirrell (Lucy Punch). She’s the kind of teacher who puts apples on her students’ desks because she says she learns as much from them as they do from her.

To get the money for the surgery, Halsey lies, cheats and steals. At a school fundraising car wash, she shows up in short shorts and a low-cut top, writhing around in the lather while everyone ogles her. She drugs the state test administrator so she can steal the answer sheet and win a cash prize for having the students with the highest grades.

I don’t even like summarizing this movie. There is nothing socially redeemable about this character that sleeps off hangovers during class time. Instead, she plays movies like Stand and Deliver about inspirational teachers.

It suffers from severe incongruity. It’s uneven and unfunny. It takes an implausible situation and has the characters act implausibly within it. They aren’t even true to themselves and don’t make sense within the world of the movie. They take actions that contradict their motivations. It’s like screenwriters Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg purposefully decided to contravene every basic tenet about stories. That doesn’t bode well for their next effort, the much-awaited Ghostbusters 3.

If you’re looking for a raunchy and irreverent comedy of manners in the same vein as Bad Santa, then just go watch Bad Santa. Bad Teacher needs to go back to school.