Career defining roles can be a mixed blessing. Billy Bob Thornton had such a role in the critical, box-office and DVD hit Bad Santa. Now, he's been playing the same pissed-off alpha-male in various comic duds for the last four years.
First it was the disappointing Bad News Bears remake; then to a lesser extent the meandering Harold Ramis-helmed Ice Harvest; last September it was the John Heder hack-show School for Scoundrels; and this fall Thornton has once again been hoisted upon his signature petard with Mr. Woodcock.
Yes, as Rotten Tomatoes aficionados may have already guessed (the flick scored a 14 percent approval rating), Mr. Woodcock is a pathetically bad film. It's a sad conglomeration of dull plot points, listless romance and beyond-tired "I'm screwing your mom" jokes.
The slog kicks off when self-help book writer John Farley (Sean William Scott) comes home to receive a "Corncob Key" award courtesy of his rural home town. Much to Farley's disinteresting chagrin, he learns his widowed mom is dating a sadistic gym teacher, one Mr. Woodcock (Thornton) who's been haunting Farley's sensitive psyche since middle school. Increasingly flustered by the continuing cruelty of Woodcock, Farley launches a plot to break up the old meanie and his beloved mother.
No, it's not an inherently sucky plot. But don't expect Woodcock to do anything with the premise. The movie is practically void of comedic timing, wit and even rudimentarily amusing slapstick. Whoever is responsible for this mess apparently thought the idea of a mom having sex with someone her son doesn't like would be intrinsically funny. There really are precious few actual jokes. The film more or less lays the basic situation on the table ad nauseam as it staggers towards its predictable conclusion.
In case I'm not being clear, the entirety of Woodcock can basically be condensed into two lines of dialogue.
Thornton (with swagger): Hey kid, I'm much manlier than you, and on a related note, am sexing up your mom nightly.
William Scott (with impotent anger): You Jerk! You were mean to me in middle school!
Damn. Screw reviews; I should start writing scripts. I just saved you 90 minutes and eight bucks.
To be fair, Woodcock has been getting kicked around for almost three years (Thornton was cast in 2004 and the movie was shot in 2005). At one point it had even garnered some semblance of inner-Hollywood buzz. The original script was apparently pretty sharp. Sharp enough, at least, to sucker in a hot-off-Bad Santa Thornton, Amy Poehler, Susan Sarandon and a desperate-to-be called-something-other-than-Stifler Sean William Scott.
For one reason or another, test audiences tore the initial Woodcock edit apart, leading to extensive re-cuts, re-shoots and a much belated fall 2007 release date. Craig Gillespie (his Ryan Gosling indie comedy, Lars and the Real Girl, has actually been getting rave reviews) may still have the directing credit, but at this point, it's tough to say whose terrible movie I just watched.
Regardless of whether Woodcock was beaten to death by studio audience pandering or just misled from the start, the end result is clear. It's crap. I really can't remember the last time I was this bored during a comedy, and that's from a guy who watched all of Employee of the Month.
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