At Tucson’s West Mesa High, drama teacher Dana Marschz (Steve Coogan) is something of an institution. Not for any of the right reasons, mind you, his theatrical rewrites of Hollywood hits like Erin Brockovich leading to empty auditoriums and scathing reviews from the school’s 9^th grade drama critic. His plays are so bad, in fact, they help lead to his entire department being targeted for closure, Principal Rocker (Marshall Bell) almost giddy he finally gets to show the failed actor the door at the end of the semester.

Steve Coogan and Elizabeth Shue in Focus Features' Hamlet 2

Dana’s home life is even more messed up. His dissatisfied wife Brie (Catherine Keener) is tired of her husband’s constantly annoying narcissism, while their gym rat boarder (David Arquette) is so freakishly unassuming and clueless who should have been born a blonde California valley girl. Worse, he can’t even seem to help out in the pregnancy department, the couple having to endure long hours at the local fertility clinic all of which seemingly are going positively nowhere.

The struggling teacher and playwright decides to write a masterpiece to save the drama department which will also hopefully rescue his marriage. With top students Rand (Skylar Astin) and Epiphany (Phoebe Strole), along with disaffected newcomers like Ivonne (Melonie Diaz) and Chuy (Michael Esparza), they’ll put on a musical rock opera sequel to Shakespeare’s Hamlet that goes so beyond the bounds of good taste it might actual have some sort of poignant resonance.

But with Principal Rocker trying to shut him down and local ACLU lawyer Cricket Feldstein (Amy Poheler) calling everyone names (supposedly on his behalf) the curtain opening for a first performance isn’t a forgone conclusion. In the end, it’s all about faith, and if the teacher can’t get his students to believe because his own is on the wan than maybe they’ll just have to be the ones to educate him and make sure this show really does go on.

Any movie with a signature musical number in its final act entitled “Rock Me Sexy Jesus” can’t be all bad, and the Sundance favorite Hamlet 2 has so many giddily silly moments of outlandish political incorrectness it certainly proves that point and then some. Writer and director Andrew Fleming (Dick) and co-writer Pam Brady (South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut) take the uplifting inspirational teacher genre and turn it on its ear, the fact much of it is kind of hit and miss not ever really mattering as much as it probably should.

It all starts with Coogan. The popular British comedian and Tropic Thunder star dominates the movie. Granted, as he’s in just about every scene he almost has to. What he does with Dana is so side-splittingly silly I just couldn’t take my eyes off of him. This is a man who starts to believe he’s actually living a real-life inspirational teacher movie, the only problem being the kids are the ones having to do most of the teaching and he’s only around to go along for the ride.

On the flipside, it is true that the film has trouble maintaining its comedic momentum, much of it lurching in borderline unsettling fits and starts all of which have the potential of turning viewers off long before they get to the fantastical third act fireworks. I wasn’t always sure what the point of all of it was, either, some of the filmmaker’s targets never as apparent (or as worthy) as I think they both assume them to be.

Thankfully, said climax is as funny as anything else I’ve seen this year. Dana’s melding of Hamlet, Jesus Christ Superstar, West Side Story and Back to the Future is in such bad taste it’s almost jaw-dropping. Just when you think Fleming and Brady can’t take it a step further, they not only step over the line they pole vault right past it. It’s downright amazing, and if I’d been watching the film at home I can tell you right now when it was finished I’d have rewound the last thirty minutes and immediately viewed them again.

It’s interesting that in a year so horrific for comedy in three successive August weeks (The Pineapple Express, Tropic Thunder and now this) Hollywood finally remembered how to be funny again. Kudos to everyone involved, with a special tip of the hat to Elizabeth Shue for bravely biting the hand that feeds her and making fun of herself so beautifully, Hamlet 2 a gloriously profane romp even the man upstairs couldn’t help but give his blessing to. Rock me sexy, indeed.

- review reprinted courtesy of the SGN in Seattle 

Film Rating: êêê (out of 4)

Additional Links

-  Interview with actor Steve Coogan by Sara Michelle Fetters
-  Hamlet 2 Theatrical Trailer