Review of School for Scoundrels (2006) by Tss5078 — 06 Dec 2015

Following his Old School Road Trip, and long before his epic Hangover, Todd Phillips went back in time to remake the classic School For Scoundrels, with disappointing results. The story follows an insecure loser in love, who takes a class on how to become more appealing to women.

His teacher is a total player, who teaches the class to the best of his abilities, but in the end, he has the same goal as the others, and ultimately falls for the same girl as the loser. When seeing a Todd Phillips comedy, that is unrated, and features Billy Bob Thornton, you should expect to see a raunchy good time, but that's not what happens here.

To Phillips, keeping as close to the original story was more important than modernizing it for today's audiences, and the result was a film that fails to live up to expectations. This film needed a major injection of raunch, the kind Thornton became known for in films like Bad Santa.

Instead you get what amounts to an average, mediocre, comedy. In this film, Thornton is paired with Jon Heder, Napoleon Dynamite himself, but as with that film, his monotone lovable loser act, gets old very quickly.

This film has all the makings of a wild ride and a terrific comedy, but instead it falls flat on it's face, as just another ordinary, run of the mill, romantic comedy.