REVIEW: BAD WORDS

I've been out of commission for a while now! I saw Frozen and The Winter Soldier, and liked both movies very much so, but along with a busy schedule to keep up with I didn't see the need to review them because I didn't feel like I could say much about those mega hits that people didn't already know/had read in previous reviews. So I figure since over Spring Break I saw a little movie not too many people are talking about yet, I'd review that: Jason Bateman's directorial debut Bad Words. From the trailer alone I knew this was not another Danny DoGood role for Mr. Bateman: no traces of Michael Bluth to be found here. I bought the concept, I bought the ticket and....uggggh.

Bateman plays Guy Trilby, a very generic name for this somewhat generic, incredibly mean-spirited movie that I'm surprised appealed to Bateman to begin with. I get shedding your good guy persona, maybe take a more dramatic role...but to still be in a comedy but just as the world's biggest jerk? I hated this movie!

First off you have to buy into the ridiculous premise that a 40 year old man could ever enter a spelling bee. The movie begs you to accept it, as somehow Guy could successfully sue this renowned spelling bee contest. When you decide to play along for the sake of keeping the story moving, the movie decides that it doesn't want to give Guy a single redeeming trait. Oh he has back story, a sad sack background and plenty of those cliched things...but I constantly found myself rooting against him. Allison Janney plays what would, in usual circumstances, be an icy spelling bee director, clearly intended as an antagonist in the film. Well...doesn't a guy who verbally abuses kids, the reporter paying his way for hotels and plane fees and carries a general disregard for all human life like a sheriff's badge count as an antagonist? I was rooting for Janney's character to disqualify him!

Bad Words hasn't enjoyed an exactly wide release. I have a theory: the content is too mean to be accepted by the mainstream! There's edgy, there's rude behavior, there's being cruel, and then there's just an ugliness this movie peaks at that just made me squirm in the worst way. There's nothing terribly clever about Guy's racially charged humor and incredibly foul mouth. I can't even say it's tired material: it's new to me only because no one makes a character that's as utterly unlikable as Guy Trilby. That little Chaitanya enjoys the insults because he doesn't have any friends in the real world...that's just weak character writing. The actor who plays him, Rohan Chand, is for sure an adorable talent, but on his IMDb page, his screen debut was in Jack and Jill. You can't get worse luck than that. He needs a better agent, one who won't sign him on to a script where he's referred to primarily as "Slumdog." 

Is Bateman fully to blame here? I'm not sure. He was the one who invested in this project, gave it life, because he's the only really big star in it. I won't lie to you, I certainly did laugh a few times in the film, but they were far and in between. At one point the cruelty and bullying gets to a point where you stop watching a movie and start having to experience looking at a man-child crush the confidence of innocent boys and girls in the pursuit of a selfish, bizarre goal.

So, go see Divergent, revisit The Winter Soldier and pop in Frozen for your five year old for the 78th time, just avoid Bad Words at all costs

Rating: 1/4 stars