Bad Teacher

I enjoyed BAD TEACHER. It's a decent comedy with a solid lead performance from Cameron Diaz. Unfortunately, the film is not as funny as the red band trailers suggested. The story is very predictable and the pacing felt off to me. The best way to describe that feeling is this: the film plays like a bunch of skits stitched together, kind of like an episode of Saturday Night Live if it followed the same characters the whole time. It's this weird pacing that keeps the film film finding a linear tone. Also, there are a few scenes missing from the film that were prominently featured in the trailers and waiting for them created a expectation that it wouldn't/couldn't achieve having removed the scenes. And yet, I found myself chuckling pretty much throughout the film. I really enjoyed Cameron Diaz, Jason Segel, Phyllis Smith and Lucy Punch. But it's Diaz and Segel that make the film better than it is. It's their chemistry that really sells their story. In the end, you will chuckle but lacking any big laughs makes this comedy less than I was expecting.