John Farley (Seann William Scott) is a best selling self-help author who decides to return to his small Midwest town to receive the city council’s highest honor, the Corncob Key, during their annual carnival. Once back, to his ultimate horror he learns his loving mother Beverly (Susan Sarandon) is being romanced by his hated middle school gym teacher Mr. Woodcock (Billy Bob Thornton), a beast of a taskmaster who at the very thought of him can set the young man’s blood practically to boiling.

Billy Bob Thornton is the gym teacher from Hell in New Line's Mr. Woodcock

Soon John is breaking every single one of his own self-help rules in order to break up these two love birds and put the kibosh on the pair’s announced engagement. He’ll do whatever it takes to see this thing end while Mr. Woodcock is not above making his former pupil look like an idiot if it makes him come off smelling like a rose. It’s dog eat dog, and if these two men aren’t careful then they’re both going to lose the one thing both of them want more then anything else and that’s Beverly’s love and undivided attentions.

The new comedy Mr. Woodcock is so anemic and poorly made it even screws up the opening titles. After setting up a reveal showing the titular P.E. titan sitting at his desk with his perfectly shiny nameplate prominently displayed right in front of him, the filmmakers can’t stop themselves a couple of minutes later from splashing the title up on the screen a second time in letters stretching from one end to the other. It’s the complete destruction of a remarkably simple and blissfully subtle gag, and any chance this one had of being an amusing surprise was thrown out the window before I even had the opportunity to open it.

Not that I should be surprised. This had trouble written all over it right from the start, the trailers and commercials making the stupid thing look like nothing more then a sequel to School for Scoundrels and if ever a comedy didn’t warrant a sequel that outright disaster had to be it. The whole thing is mean-spirited, ugly, crass, juvenile and seriously dumb. Worse, it isn’t funny, and the longer I sat in the theater the more I started fantasizing I would be quickly transported anyplace else but there.

That’s not completely fair. There is one truly great sight gag near the end with a emergency room gurney that virtually had me doubled over in laughter, while both Thornton and Sarandon (two Oscar winners who should know better) are far too good of actors to not at least have a couple of scenes with a bit of vim, vinegar and giggle producing silliness to them. Best of all, Saturday Night Live regular Amy Poehler easily steals the whole darn thing portraying the publicist from Hell, and anyone who has ever worked for even a moment with one of those is going to realize immediately just how brilliant the woman truly is.

All of which can’t help but make the unrelenting stupidity and unceasing awfulness of the rest of it that much more disheartening. Director Craig Gillespie (whose upcoming Lars and the Real Girl is actually supposed to be quite good) shows a little flair behind the camera every now and then, but overall this barely 90-minute feature moves like dried up molasses, while the screenplay by relative newcomers Michael Carnes and Josh Gilbert dangerously borders on the outright dreadful. The two main characters are two of the more unlikable figures I’ve had the misfortune to meet all year, so by the time they finally stared coming to the senses I couldn’t have cared one single bit. 

In the end, Mr. Woodcock is just another bad comedy. It doesn’t have anything interesting to say, wouldn’t know an original idea if one came up and bit it in the butt and, most importantly, isn’t very funny. It is a waste of my time to write about and yours to go and see meaning the film doesn’t just fail the entertainment test but flunks out of school as well.

Film Rating: êê  (out of 4)

Additional Links:

-  Mr. Woodcock Theatrical Trailer