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Bad, 'Drillbit'! Bad.

By Daniel Montgomery

Friday, March 21, 2008

If a story goes off like this:

CONVENIENCE STORE CLERK: “You’re like a born loser. It’s funny.”

DRILLBIT TAYLOR: “No, it’s not funny.”

CLERK: “To me it is.”_

If you’re like that convenience store clerk, dumb and slack-jawed and gazing in stupid delight at the misfortunes of others, you’ll enjoy ‘Drillbit Taylor’. The studio hopes you are, but I think more highly of you. I hated this movie. Yes, hate is such as strong word – but there you have it. It made me feel deeply unhappy. I was depressed to watch these characters, depressed that the filmmakers thought they were funny. After it ended, it was a slow, sad march to the exit. I could barely muster the strength to take a single page’s worth of hastily scribbled notes, after which I stared down at them dispiritedly and determined that the paper was worth more than anything I could write on it. I want to wash the taste of it out of my mouth and scrub it off my skin.

Because I was not preoccupied with laughing, I was noticing things that in a comedy you’re not supposed to notice. Like, how come an emancipated teen — who is 18 and thus legally an adult anyway, but never mind — still lives in daddy’s house and drives an expensive car? And how come when he hurls a sword at a group of younger kids, with the intention of doing grievous bodily harm to them, his punishment is to be sent back to his parents, instead of to jail for attempted murder?

And what kind of school is this anyway, where four homeless degenerates can walk in and masquerade as substitute teachers? Is there no background check? Don’t they require credentials or references? Do they even bother to ask who you are and what you’re doing there? The principal, played by Stephen Root, is mostly shown in his office, in a couple of scenes that demonstrate he doesn’t have a clue. I think maybe he’s never seen the rest of the school, except to get to his office in the morning and leave at the end of the day. The principal from the ‘Bratz’ movie was named Mr. Dimly — this guy sets a new standard.

And the parents, the horrible, negligent parents, who don’t notice that their children are cutting classes to learn fighting techniques from a transient con artist who lives in the street and eats out of dumpsters! There’s a stepfather who sees that his stepson is being physically attacked at school and tells him it’s good for him. Worse is this boy’s mother, who doesn’t realize she’s married to a jerk or that her son desperately needs help.

The plot: Three desperate high schoolers — skinny Wade (Nate Hartley), heavyset Ryan (Troy Gentile), and grotesque uber-nerd Emmit (David Dorfman) — look for relief from teen sociopath Filkins (Alex Frost). The principal is of no help. Their parents are useless. The teachers never seem to leave the teachers’ lounge. The police — no, the boys don’t call the police. That’s what smart kids would do when they’re the victims of stalking and assault. Instead, they enlist the help of Drillbit Taylor (Owen Wilson), a bum who plans to string the children along until he can rob their houses. Turns out, he’s also an army deserter from the Iraq War — hardy har har.

If the film had been honest about this material, it wouldn’t be a comedy. It would deal with how the community fails these kids, how they are left to fend for themselves against dangerous people, and it would be sad and sobering. It might end as this film does, with violence, but it wouldn’t celebrate that violence with such poor taste. How funny! They’re swinging around lamps, crashing through banisters, beating the living daylights out of each other, and then that nasty business with the sword. Violence is the answer, we learn, especially without any pesky adults to spoil the fun. Frost, who plays the bully, previously starred in Gus Van Sant’s ‘Elephant’ as a bullied teen who perpetrates a school shooting. That’s the scenario I thought of while watching this film. What a horror show it is!

The director is Steven Brill, the man behind ‘Without a Paddle’, ‘Mr. Deeds’, and ‘Little Nicky’. That should give you a good idea of this film’s audience — or lack thereof. One of the co-writers is ‘Seth Rogen’, who also co-wrote the very overrated ‘Superbad’; since this is just a more unpleasant version of the same characters, perhaps he should spend more time acting and less time writing. One of the producers is ‘Judd Apatow’, the maker of ‘The 40-Year-Old Virgin’ and ‘Knocked Up’. What could he possibly have seen in this miserable project to make him want to attach his name to it? What right-minded person could derive pleasure from it? The more I think about it, the less I want to.