The successful young writer of a self-help book (Seann William Scott) returns to his hometown to receive an award; there he is appalled to learn that his mother (Susan Sarandon) is engaged to the gym teacher (Billy Bob Thornton) who tormented him as a youth.

CRITIQUE

Mr. Woodcock is a misconceived, unfunny attempt at a comedy, which falls apart because the writers try to change the story in the middle, to very unsuccessful effect.  Not helping is the fact that the cast is largely miscast or wasted here; the result really doesn’t have many laughs at all, and it doesn’t really work on any level.

The main character here is John Farley, who (in scenes we see throughout) was a chunky teen constantly hassled by his gym teacher Mr. Woodcock, in scenes that are borderline disturbing; Woodcock takes glee in throwing balls at his students, making them run laps, throwing down the kids hard with wrestling moves, or humiliating them in other ways.  This all seems to be setting up what really should be the main storyline here (and is for a while), the idea that the grown Farley, appalled that this man is dating his mother, needs to find a way to trash the relationship (and gain some revenge for himself) so that he can save her.

Unfortunately, though this plotline would seem to have some dark comic potential, it isn’t ultimately what the writers have in mind.  Instead, the tale turns out to be Farley realizing that he needs to let his mother be happy even if it is with Mr. Woodcock, who isn’t so bad after all.  But not only does this never make much sense (Woodcock isn’t a nice guy, while attempts to justify his past behavior because they made Farley change from being a chubby loser are rather objectionable), but all the ambiguity undercuts the material throughout.  It’s much less fun watching Farley be stridently wrongheaded (and Woodcock never allowed to do much at all) than it would have been watching Farley get some clever, funny, honest revenge against an actual villain, while the sappy ending doesn’t work at all.

Seann William Scott isn’t really suited to the role of Farley, from the parts of the script where he is essentially playing straight man to the second half where he starts to go a bit nuts; he just isn’t very convincing in the leading role he is asked to play here.  Billy Bob Thornton is really one-note throughout, while Susan Sarandon just seems out of place; she seems like an actress who shouldn’t have to do dumb movies like this one, and she isn’t given much to work with here.  But the bottom line is that there just aren’t enough laughs to make this clumsy film worth checking out.

THE VIDEO

Mr. Woodcock is presented in widescreen 2.35:1.  The picture quality is okay but nothing special.

THE AUDIO

Mr. Woodcock is presented in English 5.1 Dolby Surround.  Dialogue, music and sound effects come through clear.  There are English and Spanish subtitles.

THE EXTRAS

There are 12 minutes of Deleted Scenes, though none are all that interesting.

The Making of Mr. Woodcock (15 minutes) is a fairly standard making-of documentary, in which the actors work hard to try to convince us (and maybe themselves) that the movie is going to be funny.

P.E. Trauma Tales is a 12-minute piece in which the cast and crew talk about their gym teachers; there’s also a piece on a real gym teacher.  But there isn’t much to it.

FINAL THOUGHT

Everyone here has been in much, much funnier movies.