I hate that I didn't like this movie. If I sit down and am prepared to be open and laugh at a movie, I can usually find the humor in it, but I am just dumbfounded on how this movie could reach anywhere above a 4 rating on IMDb....much less the 6.3 rating it has at the time of this posting. I think I recall laughing maybe three times the whole movie....of which were somewhat forced. To be honest, I think I've actually lost some respect for Will Ferrell and Adam Mckay just for recommending this movie so highly. This flick actually had some potential: The main guy being a loser that takes his goofy job waaay to seriously, his placement of some obviously "Pedro"-like kid as his top student, the dumb blonde wife, the overly-cocky bad guy........but unfortunately, it just doesn't deliver on any of the ideas. I seriously think (not just exaggerating) that Ferrell and Mckay were on something the first time they watched this, and possibly every time since. If you're just some mindless frat-boy that thinks foul language is funny, well then I guess you might think this is funny. But there's no joke behind a lot of it, just randomly placed f-bombs. At least with most of Mckay's stuff, there's still a joke behind the language.
People have mentioned the acting. Well let me reinforce that. The acting is BAD. The wife is the worst of all, and I can't believe they couldn't find ANY other hot girl to play the part. Look on IMDb at her acting credits......there's a reason she's only been in one other role. You could probably find better acting in most high school one act plays. Danny McBride was fine, and really is pretty decent when under a good director and writers. But it's almost like they just made it up as they went along. I guess I understand comparing it to Napolean Dynamite just for the fact that the characters are intentionally lame, but other than that, it's more or less a slap in the face to Jon Heder to say this movie can amount to ND in anyway (and "No"--I'm not any kind of hardcore Napolean Dynamite fan). It actually took me four sittings to finish this movie (sometimes cause I didn't have the time to finish it or cause I just couldn't make it through it any longer). I only gave it two stars cause by the time I had to turn it off the third time to go to work, I actually sorta wanted to know how it ended and sit down the fourth time to finish it....so I guess the end of the story had somewhat of a redeeming factor. And please understand, I get the whole dry-humor, lame characters, low-budget thing. I watched the Sasquatch Dumpling Gang, and while it definitely wasn't that great.....I still got the humor more than I did this one and actually laughed once in a while at it.
Anywhoo.........you get the point. It's BAD.
People have mentioned the acting. Well let me reinforce that. The acting is BAD. The wife is the worst of all, and I can't believe they couldn't find ANY other hot girl to play the part. Look on IMDb at her acting credits......there's a reason she's only been in one other role. You could probably find better acting in most high school one act plays. Danny McBride was fine, and really is pretty decent when under a good director and writers. But it's almost like they just made it up as they went along. I guess I understand comparing it to Napolean Dynamite just for the fact that the characters are intentionally lame, but other than that, it's more or less a slap in the face to Jon Heder to say this movie can amount to ND in anyway (and "No"--I'm not any kind of hardcore Napolean Dynamite fan). It actually took me four sittings to finish this movie (sometimes cause I didn't have the time to finish it or cause I just couldn't make it through it any longer). I only gave it two stars cause by the time I had to turn it off the third time to go to work, I actually sorta wanted to know how it ended and sit down the fourth time to finish it....so I guess the end of the story had somewhat of a redeeming factor. And please understand, I get the whole dry-humor, lame characters, low-budget thing. I watched the Sasquatch Dumpling Gang, and while it definitely wasn't that great.....I still got the humor more than I did this one and actually laughed once in a while at it.
Anywhoo.........you get the point. It's BAD.