Bad Teacher (2011)

It goes without saying that Bad Teacher was made to be Cody-porn. Just the thought of Cameron Diaz vs. Lucy Punch in a comedy deathmatch is almost too much. Hurrrrm. Not mention, the fact that it's directed by Jake Kasdan, who ably made Dewey Cox- an overwhelmingly underrated movie and written by Gene Stupnitsky & Lee Eisenberg, who write The (American) Office and wrote Year Zero, an other underrated comedy. All should be perfect and obstensively it is, it's just that it stands in the shadows of Bridesmaids and it's not as consistant. Herein lies the rub; Bridesmaids is completely populated with seasoned comedy actors and even though Jon Hamm isn't, he still knocks it out of the park. In Bad Teacher, Cameron Diaz and Justin Timberlake aren't funny enough because everyone else around them is really funny. Now don't get me wrong, they get to say funny shit and it's funny but that's more down to a hilarious script. Now in theory, Diaz playing a nasty conniving super bitch and Timberlake playing an asexual trustafarian dimwit AKA playing against type, is a funny idea but they sadly don't pull it off as well as the film should... Maybe it's something about beautiful people not being funny.
But that would be disprove by the stunning, talented, delightful MONSTER called Lucy Punch. I've not nearly professed all the ways she illuminates any screen she graces and i've professed a lot over the last 6months! but she does not disappointed again. Playing prissy, passive-aggressive nemesis of Diaz, she predictably kills her in every scene they share. There's nothing lacking, nothing she won't do to get a laugh and you feel that. Lucy Punch has no ego on screen.
As well as Punch, the cast is rounded out by Jason Segel, John Michael Higgins and Phyllis Smith, who are all sure hands here.
Now as much as I believe that the script is funny, that doesn't make it automatically amazing; Stupnitsky & Eisenberg, might be one of the current best American comedy writing teams but they've not perfected writing for a feature length yet and provide a particularly unrealistic super happy ending to the film, which is permissively aggressive and mean all the way through. But this is maybe their 2nd movie and they hardly coasting on laughs, they wrote a consistently funny film with at least 10 memorable funny moments and has maybe the best poop joke of year (maybe better than the one in Bridesmaid and that is a masterful poop gag)...

I watched Bad Teacher (2011) at the cinema.
My 2011 in Movies will return with Permissive (1970)...