Bad Words Review

Grade: C+
One-Liner: Wait to see it when it plays on an endless FX loop in two years.

I'm a big fan of the "Bad" fad that started with Billy Bob Thorton's Bad Santa in 2003 and recently included Cameron Diaz's Bad Teacher in 2011. Who doesn't like to watch run-down, vulgar, and particularly pissed off people in their 40s lash out at everyone around them and corrupt young kids' minds?

After directing several TV episodes of various shows, Jason Bateman tried his hand at his first feature length film in Bad Words. It follows 40-year-old Guy Trilby, who thanks to never passing the 8th grade, enacts sweet vengeance on a national spelling bee and the young contestants. His biggest mistake was casting himself in the lead role of Guy Trilby. It's hard to take away the image of Bateman's traditional role as a hard working average joe who rarely gets credit for his work and replace it with him being a foul-mouthed genius, who likes to terrorize children and their parents at the Golden Quill spelling bee. I could have envisioned an actor like Paul Rudd in the part, especially after his thoroughly pessimistic performance in 2008's Role Models.

Bateman's Guy didn't seem down enough to reach the level of asshole-iness necessary for the part. It was as if he was a high schooler, who had just learned how to curse and was trying to make the most of it. His reasoning and background were explained and sufficient enough, but Guy's persona in general made him look more like a laidback parent than the jerk who was destroying kids' dreams.

That being said, he did have some great lines and insults, especially the ones aimed at the adults. And his chemistry with Rohan Chand's Chaitanya Chopra was the best part of the film.

Though I'm a big fan of Kathryn Hahn, it's still unclear to me as to why her characters must always be oppressively unkempt. She could have played an emotionally weak journalist Jenny just as effectively if she didn't have a comical messy bun habitually propped on the top of her head. It seemed as if she'd been dressed in clothes two sizes too big, and I couldn't really understand why.

After the way Guy treated her, it felt like there needed to be a moment when he apologized or explained more, but instead, she blew up and then promptly forgave him with little reason as to why.

It had a fairly satisfying ending, and at 89 minutes, it was just the right amount of time, but overall, Bad Words was A-V-E-R-A-G-E.