No jokes about my name...
PG-13
Seann William Scott, Billy Bob Thornton, Susan Sarandon
John Farley: You have a father?
Mr. Woodcock: Of course I have a father, Farley, I’m not Jesus.
John Farley (Scott) writes a book about overcoming your troubled past and is to be honored in his small home town. Upon returning home, he learns that his mother is going to marry Mr. Woodcock (Thornton), the high school gym teacher that John blames for many of the psychological problems he suffered as a child. Of course, John wants to stop this marriage from happening.
This is one of those comedies where it seems like they just didn’t have many jokes written. I guess they assumed people would be laughing at the name Woodcock, but that wasn’t even really funny the first time, much less the next 100 times it’s said.
It’s not a hatefully bad movie, it’s just boring. It was good to see Seann William Scott playing a more reserved, normal character than he usually does, and I give Thornton props for maintaining his character throughout the movie. But, a comedy depends on funny dialogue, and this movie hardly even makes an attempt at it.
Susan Sarandon is good as Farley’s mother, and she’s probably the main reason the movie is at least somewhat palatable.
I think the script needed somebody funny to take another look at it and write in some more jokes here and there. There’s way too many times when you’re watching the plot unfold and you realize, “shouldn’t there be more jokes here? This is a comedy, right?”
10 – 5 for missing the funny + .2 for the performances = 5.2
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