Drillbit Taylor (**)

Directed by: Stephen Brill (Without a Paddle, Mister Deeds, Little Nicky)
Starring: Owen Wilson, Leslie Mann
Seen: August 27th 2008

** Out of ****

Who among us can think back to our schooldays and not remember someone being bullied? Sometimes brutally, I know I do. So this premise of this film is one we are all familiar with, the underdogs trying to get, at least in small part, the upper hand. In Drillbit Taylor (Owen Wilson here plays the title role) Ryan and Wade (two pretty geeky guys themselves) stand up for a small boy on their first day of high school. This happens to be the same day they both try to make a statement of coolness, and end up wearing the same shirt to school. Specifically a red shirt that probably belongs to a professional ten-pin bowler.

When the little guy, Emmit, is being shoved into a locker by bullies Filkins and Ronnie, Ryan and Wade intercede, and they get humiliated themselves. They decide its time to hire a professional bodyguard after pleas for help to the school authorities fall on deaf ears. What they never realised was that professional bodyguards are quite expensive, and they end up, after an amusing line of interviews, hiring Drillbit Taylor. He has a suitable name and military background for them; or does he?

Drillbit Taylor is a homeless con-man, trying to get the kids to open up to them, in order to get access to their homes and the riches they can steal there. The kids, however, are so single-mindedly focussed on their own protection, that all this goes straight past them. Drillbit tells them he’s watching them at all times, and if they don’t see him, that’s because he’s doing such a great job, and they keep on believing him, for an insanely long period of time.

While this continues Drillbit “infiltrates” the kids’ school as a substitute teacher, and he and the pretty teacher Lisa (Leslie Mann) fall for each other. He does, however, fall for the kids, and when things start looking bad, he stands up for them. But, eventually, like with all comedies about hidden agendas, everything comes to the light, people are unhappy with other people for a while, and there is a resolution to events. Filkins does find out that Drillbit is not a teacher, and the kids are once again in danger of becoming the bullied, but a happy ending we get, and it is always satisfying to see a bully being beaten, whether it’s right or not…

So that’s the main parts of the story, and we saw this all in the trailer. Does the film offer anything more than this? Sadly the answer is no, there is little to remember about this film, and eventually this will be relegated to the back shelves of a DVD rental shop, where customers need to read the film title on the spine of a box, and as they won’t be out searching for this one, it will fade into obscurity.