The last time I saw this much talent in a losing cause was Super Bowl XLII. Trying to mix farce with heart, “Drillbit Taylor” is instead as soulful as Kenny G and as wacky as public television.
Three bully-terrorized high school geeks – they have no identities beyond being chubby, skinny and short – post an Internet ad for a bodyguard. Their budget: $83. Enter Drillbit Taylor (Owen Wilson), ex-military man (“I was discharged. Unauthorized heroism.”). We know, but the kids don’t, that Drillbit is actually a homeless bum living on the Santa Monica beaches who takes the job with an eye toward scamming the kids.
Though the movie was co-written by Seth Rogen (with Kristofor Brown, a veteran of “Beavis and Butt-head” and “Undeclared”)
and produced by Judd Apatow, it delivers a laugh only every five minutes, far fewer than Apatow and Rogen can cook up off the cuff in interviews.
Montage scenes (interviewing bodyguards, training) go nowhere, and potentially great ideas – like the adult world’s eternal indifference to/defense of bullies – are merely glanced at.
When two kids accidentally wear the same Satan-head shirt to school, the best mockery anyone can manage is, “Are you guys part of a bowling team?”
The few funny moments come largely from throwaway gags, such as the dainty homeless guys who use hand sanitizer.
The plot implausibilities (Drillbit, to protect the kids at school, goes undercover as a substitute teacher called “Dr. Illbit” for many days, but no one notices; he doesn’t seem to have a car, yet he magically pops up all over LA) wouldn’t matter if the tone were as absurd as, say, early Steve Martin. Yet there are awkward little moments in which people have feelings and get hurt.
Leslie Mann plays a randy teacher who at first offers Drillbit a few chances to get his pencil sharpened but then turns out to be emotionally fragile about her attraction to loser guys.
The second-act closing scene features a pained realization and a heart-tugging score that would embarrass the producers of “Grey’s Anatomy.”
The kids – the fat, curly-haired one is like a Russian doll who emerged from Jonah “Superbad” Hill, who in turn was hatched by Rogen – are supposed to be smart, yet they don’t notice Drillbit is robbing one of their houses or that he knows nothing about fighting.
Maybe Rogen and Apatow are constrained by the PG-13 rating, which is so restrictive that practically any 10 p.m. TV show wouldn’t qualify. Or the blame may belong to director Steven Brill, whose résumé carries the shrapnel of such bombs as “Little Nicky” and “Ready To Rumble.”
Wilson, who attempted suicide after completing the film, isn’t the problem; he remains the Sunny Delight of the screen, no hint of a cloud over him as he does his typically amusing manboy shtick. “You!” he barks to a kid, in drill-sergeant mode. “Get me a bowl of cereal!”
The movie could have gone either way and scored: If it wanted the heart of “My Bodyguard” (whose star, Adam Baldwin, does a cameo here), the kids might have figured out Drillbit’s scam, taken pity on him and become his mentors. Or, setting its comedy pathfinder to outrageous, it could have come up with some nerd vengeance.
Instead, it can’t even keep a handle on who the characters are. The climax drops everything it has established so far to suddenly change the abilities of two characters.
The bullies keep shape-shifting, too; at times they’re dangerous psychos who nearly split the kids’ heads open with a sword and try to run them over with a car; other times, they’re just out for a laugh.
One scene portrays them as so meek that they allow the nerds to best them in freestyle rapping without so much as a half-hearted purple-nurpling in response.
DRILLBIT TAYLOR
Cine-wedgie.
Running time:
109
minutes.
Rated
PG-13
(sexual humor, profanity, drug references, sexual situations, bullying). At the E-Walk, Lincoln
Square, Kips Bay,
others.