Susan Granger’s review of “Mr. Woodcock” (New Line Cinema)
The title of the picture is about as funny as this gets. There’s not much class here.
Billy Bob Thornton has played nasty roles before in “Bad News Bears,” “School for Scoundrels” and “Bad Santa,” so it’s not much of a stretch for him to tackle Mr. Woodcock, an abusive physical-education teacher who falls in love with a woman whose son he gleefully tormented all through middle-school.
It all begins as John Farley (Seann William Scott of “American Pie”) returns to his Nebraska hometown on a promotional tour for his best-selling self-help book, “Letting Go: Getting Past Your Past.” To his horror, he discovers that his widowed mother Beverly (Susan Sarandon) is sexually involved with the tyrannical jock who humiliated him as a kid. Memories of the suffering he endured during his chubby, geeky adolescence overwhelm reason as Farley sets out to sabotage their wedding plans.
Written by Michael Carnes and Josh Gilbert and originally scheduled for release last year, “Mr. Woodcock” was temporarily shelved and several of director Craig Gillespie’s original scenes were re-shot by producer David Dobkin, who directed “Wedding Crashers.”
To his credit, Billy Bob Thornton resists the temptation to ham-it-up, delivering vulgar contemptuousness with a stone-face, leaving the hysteria to Seann William Scott. Susan Sarandon is given little to do but react. In supporting roles, Amy Poehler nails Farley’s nasty publicist, Ethan Supplee scores as Farley’s old friend and (uncredited) Bill Macy demonstrates the genetic derivation of Woodcock’s obnoxiousness.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Mr. Woodcock” is a flabby, unfocused 5. The only redeeming aspect of this ridiculous comedy is that it skewers those sweat-suited phys-ed sadists we all remember from gym class, but is that satisfaction really worth the price of admission?
