Dispatches from the Popcorn Stadium: Bad Words

First there was Bad Santa, and it was a pretty great film. Then came Bad Teacher, which had its moments, but wasn't anywhere as good as Bad Santa. Finally, there is Bad Words, a movie starring, directed, produced, and catered* by Bateman. It's his directing debut, but is far from the debut of the typical Jason Bateman "smarm" character, even if he's more of a potty mouth than Michel Bluth ever was. While I only enjoyed parts of the film, I would like to see how Director Jason Bateman does going forward, as I think he has some promise.



Yes, Jason Bateman spends most of the film dropping F-bombs at junior high kids, their parents, and the adminstrators of a national spelling bee. He does this because he is a competitor, using a ridiculous loophole (think "there's no rule saying a mule can't play football" kind of ridiculous) to advance through a spelling bee competition, until he finally makes it to the big show in Los Angeles. He is portrayed as a genius, yet he never completed the eighth grade. This is in part due to his mother's hatred of education. All of this somehow plays into the story, which I won't spoil for you here.

It's stuff like this that keeps the movie from being more than what it is. While watching it, I couldn't help but think that somehow, a genius would have still gotten at least a GED. I would have thought his job as a proofreader would have required some sort of educational proof (unless he just lucked into the job, or it depended entirely on a skills test). There are also other leaps of faith and coincidences that just don't make a lot of sense, and are the only way the plot advances in the story.

With all that being said, many of Bateman's one liners are pretty funny, and he works well with young spelling champion Chaitanya Chopra (Rohan Chand). The ringers in the cast (Philip Baker Hall, Allison Janney, Kathryn Hahn) all do a good job with their characters, even if the material is problematic at times. And as mentioned above, Bateman does a pretty good job with the direction. If only he could get better material to work with.

Recommendation: Stream it when it becomes available. It will also make a good weekend afternoon movie when it comes on Starz or HBO in a year or so.

* OK, he probably didn't cater the film