Bad Teacher (2011)

Directed by Jake Kasdan. Starring Cameron Diaz, Jason Segel, Lucy Punch, Justin Timberlake, John Michael Higgins, Phyllis Smith, Eric Stonestreet, Thomas Lennon, Dave Allen, Matthew J. Evans, Kaitlyn Dever, Kathryn Newton, Jillian Armenante, Nat Faxon. [R]

Gutless comedy in the “so-and-so behaving badly” tradition casts Diaz as a lazy, amoral, and materialistic middle school teacher who’s only interested in earning enough money for a boob job, landing a rich husband, and never having to deal with these snot-nosed brats ever again. But instead of really going for it (like how its obvious inspiration Bad Santa did), the filmmakers concoct unctuous characters in her orbit—fellow educators like jealous, spiteful Punch and namby-pamby creep Timberlake—so we’re encouraged to root for her all the way. Worse, the “bad teacher” has a (slight) change of heart around the midway point and tries to improve herself and even help a couple of her students: yuck. Diaz continues her quest to find a rude-and-crude vehicle counterpoint to the arrested-development boy’s club of R-rated movie comedies, but is let down by the slapdash, uninspired material yet again. Molly Shannon cameos.

39/100