Tired of playing the likable straight man, Jason Bateman chose to play a total jerk in his directorial debut, “Bad Words.” A young Jack Nicholson might have pulled this off, but Jason Bateman is not Jack Nicholson. Pity the actor who thinks he’s edgier than he actually is.
“Bad Words” amounts to an extended insult-comedy routine from the amateurishly vulgar second-rate stand-up you’d hope to avoid down at the Mirth Canal or the Giggleplex.
Bateman’s Guy Trilby is a swinish 40-year-old genius who, by exploiting a loophole, is heading to the championships of a nationwide spelling bee that is supposed to be for eighth-graders. He never finished eighth grade, you see, therefore he qualifies, and he intends to win in part by playing mind games on the innocent kids, swearing at them and unloading cruel ethnic humor.
He’s also required to have the sponsorship of a nationally recognized news organization, but instead has the backing of an obscure website run by a reporter (Kathryn Hahn) who is paying for his hotels. Instead of playing exploit-the-loophole right back, organizers grudgingly allow him to compete. For her part, exclusive access to a subject who barely speaks to her (though he occasionally bonks her in strange settings) doesn’t seem to be paying off much. But at any rate, the movie changes its mind and decides it’s somehow the organizers’ responsibility to organize his lodgings, which is a contrivance to show him staying in a broom closet, ha ha.
The movie fails completely at everything it’s trying to do, from the structure right down to the one-liners. Early on, it discards any competitive suspense having to do with the spelling bee (Guy is so good, he doesn’t even need to study), and the film doesn’t bother to create a love-hate spark between Guy and the journalist, who are strictly on hate-hate terms. Instead it stakes everything on the audience hanging around for no other reason but to hear Guy’s next pathetic race or genitalia insult and to figure out why he’s so obnoxious.
His secret is so banal that it could hardly sustain a 30-second TV commercial, much less a movie. And his sudden, oddball friendship with an Indian boy (Rohan Chand) inexplicably turns from total hostility to one of those wacky-fun montages in which the young grind learns to loosen up, and we first start to suspect crusty old Guy of harboring a heart so golden, you expect him to hop on a sled and start returning presents to Whoville.
If I’m making the film sound merely unbearable, I’m afraid I’m not doing my job. It’s worse than that. It would be self-pitying, if it had a self; its attempts to be outrageous are merely unfortunate. Guy should take the advice he gives someone else: “You shouldn’t insult people. You’re no good at it.”