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EDITOR'S PICK
Rating: *1/2
It`s one of the most frivolous plots imaginable -- a bad, foul mouthed school
teacher working her way through by hook or crook just to get a boob-job done.
And though this wafer-thin, sexist film may be bad in most departments, it will
perhaps work for some people -- most of all for those who are as flippant as the
character.
Elizabeth (Cameron Diaz) is the kind of teacher who is bad enough to give the
worst of teachers a bad name. She dopes, drinks, is foul-mouthed and sexually
inappropriate -- all of this in her class. Her only ambition in life is to marry
a rich guy. To do that, she thinks she needs work on her breasts, for which she
needs 10,000 dollars. She does everything in her power as a school teacher, and
beyond, to somehow manage that money. She also faces competition from another
teacher out to expose her.
Cameron Diaz is too old to play a young, pesky teacher. However, it is her age
and experience that gives her character an I-care-a-damn attitude which gives
the film a little semblance of credulity and its few funny moments.
The story, as expected, is predictable. However, the gags and the jokes could
have been original. Sadly, there isn`t much luck on that front either. The
humour is tasteless and the acting, in most parts, is bland. However, that may
not be such a bad thing since the film has a sense of mockery about it. It is
irreverent of everything, including itself.
But most of all it is perhaps impudent towards our times without really
intending it. It is a film that would not have been considered by studios worthy
of wasting precious money and an expensive star on. However, the fact that it
exists and is getting a global release means that the producers know that come
what may, they won`t lose out. Sign of the times? Definitely.
And though there was an opportunity for its humour to be dark, sharp and witty,
we instead have some overused and stale jokes that fail the film as well as the
actors who do try to revive the movie, but to no effect.
Yet, it has a kind of mawkishness that will work for some kind of people,
especially the bad-to-the-bone ones. It`s a film made for them.
A comedy centered around a foul-mouthed, junior high teacher (Cameron Diaz) who, after being dumped by her sugar daddy, begins to woo a colleague (Justin Timberlake) - a move that pits her against a well-loved teacher.