Dir. Todd Phillips
Writ. Todd Phillips, Scot Armstong
Act. Jon Heder, Billy Bob Thornton, Jacinda Barrett

The only thing I can say positive about this movie is that Jon Heder is not a complete ass. He isn't the normally annoying character that we saw in Napoleon Dynamite, Benchwarmers, or Just Like Heaven. So I guess there is hope he can be better than a jackass. As for the movie, it was mildly amusing but by no means a laugh out loud comedy.

Jon Heder (Benchwarmers) is Roger, a complete dork of a meter maid who is a coward. After he is turned down as a big brother from the kid, he is told by a friend to take this top secret class at the adult education center being taught by a Mr. P, played by Billy Bob Thornton (Bad News Bears,) on how not to be a wuss. After Roger passes the first test, Mr. P moves in on Roger's new woman, Amanda, played by Jacinda Barrett, and it is up to Roger to find a way to get his woman back and beat Mr. P at his game.

Again we are shown another comedy that is not funny, a running 'gag' for the 2006 movie going season. While the elements were there in this movie to be funny, Heder continued to blow almost every comedic line written for him. Time and time again, he would walk right through a good funny line with the end result being a quite audience. He was better in this movie because he was giving a non-character performance. It seems that when he is a character in a movie, it is some bastardization of his Napoleon Dynamite character and just comes off as fake, annoying, and pisses me off, quite frankly. But for this movie, he gave a decent performance, when he wasn't skipping lines. Billy Bob was adequate at best, mildly amusing but nothing to write home about. All though I will say that he was given the bet line in the movie, whether it was written as a comedic line or not, I don't know, and I was the only one laughing in the theater (however, it wasn't exactly packed.) Anyway, Heder was crying that Billy Bob was stealing his girl, and complaining about how close they had become and Billy Bob turned around and said, "Oh, like you two were going to run of a adopt a little Chinese boy." I took this as a dig on his ex-wife Angelina Jole so I thought the line was great.

There is not too much story here. Everything is way too easy. Typified by the climatic scene where Roger fakes an attack to prove to Amanda that Mr. P is not a doctor. Earlier in the movie, Mr. P framed Roger by making it look like Roger snuck into Amanda's apartment and trashed, stole her underwear, and spray painted the dog. After that, I don't care what Roger could think off, I don't see anyway a woman would suddenly believe Roger while watching Mr.P screw up as a doctor, showing that Roger was right all along. It's not going to happen with any woman I know.

The are a few good scenes in the movie, the paint ball being one of them, and most of the classroom scenes in general, but this movie can't create and maintain any kind of humor. So, School For Scoundrels, is yet another movie in the year 2006 to skip.

Brian - the Naked Gun