![]() ![]() “I’m not good at a lot of things,” confesses Guy Tribly (Bateman) in an opening voiceover. Simply to make people laugh, which makes “Bad Words” a sufficiently Showcase for Bateman’s ability to direct comedic storytelling than It, as the aforementioned precedent does so well. Taking cues from Andrew Dodge’s Blacklist screenplay, “Bad Words” has aĬaustic wit that puts its comedy in league with “Bad Santa,” but justīarely delivers on the cruel intensions of the premise without deepening Spelling bee by amusingly upstaging the pre-pubescent competitors, movesĪlong at an enjoyable pace carried by its steady heap of one-liners. Which he plays a bitter 40-year-old who crashes a national children’s Santa’ with spelling bees,” a comparison so evident in the material Come for the dark hilarity of a middle-aged man trading immature insults with children three decades his junior, but stay for the heartwarming bond that forms between Guy and Chaitanya.Jason Bateman has described his directorial debut, “Bad Words,” as “‘Bad The movie’s wacky high-concept premise has an air of Billy Madison, but its execution is closer to Bobcat Goldthwait’s Shakes the Clown. There’s an underlying sentimentality, but at the same time, it doesn’t hold back. Whether he’s in a prank war with a 10-year-old boy, a screaming match with a disgruntled mother, or a confrontation with a deadbeat dad, Guy is always a darkly hilarious delight.įor movie fans with a twisted sense of humor, Bad Words is a must-see. Even in scene transitions like the walk from Guy’s hotel room through the lobby to the bus to the spelling bee, which most movies would leave as mundane coverage to get from point A to point B, Bateman is constantly slipping in gags. The story is always moving forward, no scene drags on for longer than it needs to, and there’s always something to enjoy on-screen. With a nice, breezy runtime of 89 minutes, Bad Words doesn’t waste a second. Bernice Deagan, the infuriated spelling bee director who thinks he’s making a mockery of the event and Philip Baker Hall classes up the proceedings as the bee’s stern-faced founder, Dr. ![]() Tai, an uptight mom he clashes with Allison Janney as Dr. Bateman is well-matched with all his other co-stars, too: Kathryn Hahn as Jenny Widgeon, the journalist profiling Guy Rachael Harris as Mrs. He overworks his son, he values winning over everything else, and he refuses to listen to his son or connect with him, so Chaitanya is desperate for a father figure, and Guy reluctantly fills that role. Chaitanya’s dad makes him stay at the spelling bee’s chosen hotel alone while he stays at a more lavish hotel across town. As a former child actor himself, Bateman knew exactly how to direct a child actor effectively, and he develops a touching on-screen dynamic with Chand. The heart of the film is the unlikely friendship that forms between Guy and 10-year-old spelling bee contestant Chaitanya Chopra, played by Rohan Chand. His pitch-perfect comedic timing is reflected in the editing and pacing. He strikes a spot-on tone – dark but not too dark – in both his portrayal of Guy’s biting wit and his overall direction of the film. The strengths of Bateman’s performance extend to his work behind the camera. ![]() Playing the lead role gave Bateman a kind of creative control that most directors can only dream of. After a storied acting career in which he’d worked with such prolific directors as Jason Reitman, Mike Judge, Peter Berg, Todd Phillips, and Nicholas Stoller, Bateman had gotten a crash course in filmmaking.
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