Sick of classes yet? For students who answered yes to this question a new movie, directed by Todd Philips will make them glad to be at Plymouth instead of Dr. P’s School for Scoundrels.
Roger, played by Jon Heder (Napolean Dynamite) is a meter-maid, who doesn’t excel at his job, has no friends, and can’t talk to a girl without making a fool of himself. An acquaintance of Roger gives him the number of Dr. P, played by Billy Bob Thornton (Friday Night Lights and Bad News Bears), a man who runs a school for “losers” just like Roger and promises to teach them how to get ahead in life.
To Roger’s delight, at first things seem to be working. As a result of Dr. P’s class, he gets a date with the girl of his dreams, Amanda, played by Jacinda Barrett (Ladder 49), confronts his co-workers and seems to be the head of the class. However, Dr. P turns out to be a jealous teacher who doesn’t take well to being outdone by his students. He starts strategically taking away the newfound success Roger has found. He gets Roger fired from his job and turns Amanda against him just to start dating her himself.
Although the movie tries very hard to be fresh and new, it fails completely. Viewers are likely to feel like they’re suffering from deja vu when they see Heder and Thornton play the same characters they always play. The plot is also the same ole’ thing we see in almost every comedy: Guy likes hot girl, guy embarrasses himself in front of hot girl (audience laughs), guy goes to desperate measures to get girl, almost succeeds and when challenged rises to the occasion and kisses girl in the last few moments. Sound familiar? Thought so.
Despite all this, School for Scoundrels isn’t to be completely discarded. There are few small reasons to watch the movie. There’s no doubt about it, even if they play the same character in every movie, Heder and Thornton are just funny, period.
So if viewers are looking for funny and nothing else they’re in luck because School for Scoundrels just came out on DVD February 13. The movie runs about 100 minutes and is available in its original PG-13 version or unrated.