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September 29, 2006
School for Scoundrels
(out of four)
First came Bad Santa, then Bad News Bears, now this, School for Scoundrels, another Billy Bob Thornton comedy in which the grizzly old coot demonstrates precisely how not to behave in polite society. To keep the "bad" theme going, they might have called the movie Bad Education if (a) Pedro Almodóvar hadn't snagged that title first or (b) they didn't want to let on that it was a remake.
This School for Scoundrels update, in which Thornton plays a guru who teaches spineless young men (including Napoleon Dynamite's Jon Heder) how to go after what they want, has been in development since 1993. In post-Wedding Crashers Hollywood, the entire exercise feels dated (just as the comedy's PG-13 rating — this in spite of a recurring anal rape joke — makes it feel neutered).
And Old School director Todd Phillips walked away from Borat for this? Sure, it's funny. Consider the cast: Supporting roles are filled by Ben Stiller, Luis Guzman, Sarah Silverman, High Fidelity's Todd Louiso, Arrested Development's David Cross, SNL's Horatio Sanz and Michael Clarke Duncan (in a dress, no less). But its teaching methods are obsolete.
Today, pickup artists have The Game, an arsenal of psychological tricks used to break down a woman's defenses and con her into bed, as revealed in Neil Strauss' so-titled exposé. But in 1947, Stephen Potter's Gamesmanship was a revelation, a pseudo-self-help satire designed to teach men the art of making others feel inferior. Using Potter's tips, students could succeed in all manner of competitions simply by undermining their opponents' confidence. In other words, victory could be theirs not by winning, but by ever-so-subtly encouraging their opponents to lose.
At first, Potter's methods had less to do with seduction than "one-upsmanship." But that all changed with School for Scoundrels, or How to Win Without Really Cheating! — the big-screen adaptation of Potter's teachings that introduced the notion of "woo-manship" to his repertoire. In the movie, after taking Potter's course, a feckless British sod one-ups his rival and gets the girl. It sounds simple, but the movie managed to engage class warfare, athletic competition and the battle of the sexes all on the same field.
The American version ditches the "how to win without really cheating" philosophy, shifting the focus from skillful one-upsmanship to general jackassery. The con is gone, but confrontations abound. The school's primary lesson is "lie, lie and lie some more," and within its PG-13 confines, everything goes. Both movies feature a gentleman's game of tennis, but it's telling that the newer one uses on-court violence for laughs.
Phillips' version does add one tantalizing twist as Thornton singles out his best student (Heder, of course) and takes him on mano a mano, but it seems like an awful lot of trouble to win over such an uninteresting love interest.
[as featured in The Miami Herald]
Posted by Peter Debruge on