Dir: Craig Gillespie US . 2007. 89mins.
Former pupils of sadistic PE teachers will be a key audience for Mr Woodcock, an intermittently chuckle-worthy comedy with Billy Bob Thornton as the bullying, track-suited title character. Having reportedly sat on the shelf for a year, with some scenes re-shot, it's unlikely that this feature debut by commercials director Craig Gillespie (whose Lars And The Real Girl was at this month's Toronto Festival) will now make a big impact theatrically. But it could still produce some decent ancillary returns for distributor New Line and the company's international partners.

In North America, where it opens wide (with a PG-13 rating) this weekend, there's a danger that the film will prove too tame for younger moviegoers and too raucous for an older crowd. And arriving in cinemas on the heels of comparable summer hits Knocked Up and Superbad won't help either.

Independent distributors working with New Line in other territories might have it a little easier. Though Thornton is not a big draw internationally, the humour should travel fairly well and could even connect better outside the US.

Thornton 's Jasper Woodcock continues the line of comic anti-heroes that the actor started in 2003's Bad Santa and continued in 2005's Bad News Bears.

The script by first-timers Michael Carnes and Josh Gilbert introduces the character 'educating' his latest class of weedy corn-belt high school kids with hurled basketballs and endless push-ups.

A decade or so later, John Farley (Seann William Scott, from the American Pie series), one of the gym tyrant's regular victims, comes back to his home town to be honoured as the author of self-help bestseller Letting Go: Getting Past Your Past. To his horror, John discovers that his widowed but still lively mother (Susan Sarandon) is dating the dreaded Mr Woodcock. And as the affair heats up, John has to confront his past and attempt to live up to his own authorial advice.

The comedy is a mix of slapstick (from realistic-looking gym action to much broader choreographed sequences); mild raunch (only here it's middle-age rather than teenage sex that gets the laughs); and the kind of 'nerd humour' that helped make the American Pie movies, and this summer's Judd Apatow hits, endearing as well as funny. There's some gentle fun poked at small town Middle America and a bit of a message about growing up and moving on.

The comedy works in patches, though it never really gets beyond the single note of the tension between John and Mr Woodcock. And as the story goes on, the film goes flat for increasingly lengthy stretches.

Gillespie appears to have taken a hands-off directing approach, which leaves the actors plenty of room to work with the script but sometimes leaves individual scenes feeling oddly static. (Wedding Crashers director David Dobkin is said to have handled the re-shoots.)

Thornton is in good form as the steely Woodcock, keeping deadpan and avoiding caricature. And as the character's battle of wits with John unfolds, he gets the audience to slowly move over to the initially loathsome Woodcock's side.

Scott handles the shift from his usual maniacal roles to a less aggressive character fairly well, and Sarandon is fun as John's loving but independent Mum. The supporting cast includes Ethan Suplee in a role quite similar to his part in TV's My Name Is Earl and Saturday Night Live's Amy Poehler doing a standout turn as John's cutthroat publicist.

Production company
Landscape Entertainment (US)
Avery Pix (US)

US distribution
New Line Cinema

International distribution
New Line International

Executive producers
Diana Pokorny
Toby Emmerich
Kent Alterman
Karen Lunder

Producers
Bob Cooper
David Dobkin

Screenplay
Michael Carne
Josh Gilbert

Director of photography
Tami Reiker

Production design
Alison Sadler

Editors
Alan Baumgarten
Kevin Tent

Costume design
Wendy Chuck

Music
Theodore Shapiro

Main cast
Billy Bob Thornton
Seann William Scott
Susan Sarandon
Ethan Suplee
Amy Poehler

Topics