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Common Sense Note
Parents need to know that this lowbrow Billy Bob Thornton comedy revolves around an ongoing, immature competition between a woman's adult son and her suitor. In other words, expect lots of slapstick violence and childish behavior. Sexual jokes include the older man bragging about his prowess and sleeping with the young man's mother (in one scene, the younger man hides underneath a bed while his mother and her boyfriend have noisy sex above him). There's some drinking and smoking and plenty of strong language, including "a--hole," "s--t," and derogatory terms describing women and homosexual men.
Families can talk about whether this kind of movie is funny. Why or why not? Why do so many comedies aimed at teens try to push the envelope with crude, lowbrow humor? Are teens more likely than adults to find it amusing? When does that style of humor cross the line? And who determines where that line falls, anyway?
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Cynthia Fuchs
You could call MR. WOODCOCK the latest version of The Billy Bob Thornton Movie, the one in which he plays ornery elder to assorted subordinates. This time around he's a gym teacher with a tedious name who pummels little boys with basketballs, tormenting the ones who are overweight, stutter, or have asthma and infusing all of them with lifelong insecurities and nightmares.
When one freckle-faced victim, Johnny, grows up to be Seann William Scott, he appears to have escaped the pattern. In fact, he's written a best-selling self-help book, Letting Go, that's all about forgetting the past in order to move on. Against the advice of his energetic publicist Maggie (Amy Poehler), he accepts an invitation to go home to small-town Nebraska in order to receive the vaunted "Corn Cob Key." He likes corn, he says -- and besides, he can visit his mom, Beverly (Susan Sarandon).
John's triumphant return is cut short when he learns that his mother's new boyfriend is Mr. Woodcock (Thornton). Instantly, the two men kindle a competition: John is determined to make his apparently unsuspecting mother recognize that her suitor is in fact unsuitable, while Woodcock means to prove his superiority one more time.
Though John has supposedly self-helped himself through all of his childhood hang-ups and anguish, he's unable to stop himself. When Woodcock is around -- which is often -- John falls back into all his old fears and uncertainty, while Woodcock out-mans him, making sure the kid sees him kissing and fondling Beverly and beating him in every contest they come up with at the gym (this workout montage is predictable, but also mercifully brief).
Desperate, John enlists help from another former Woodcock victim, Nedderman (Ethan Suplee), who's now working at a pizzeria and nursing his grudge against the man he believes ruined his life. John also runs into a childhood crush, Tracy (Melissa Sagemiller), but she provides only brief distraction, as he remains obsessively focused on showing up his stepfather to be.
In another movie, the premise -- how an adult bully affects his victims -- might have been worthy. But here it's only a point of departure for obnoxious humor (lots of insults, along with Woodcock's smackdowns). When you find out that he has an abusive father (who's still being mean from his wheelchair in a retirement home), well, you don't really care. And, really, the most upsetting part of the movie is that Beverly puts up with any of this rudeness and silliness, from either her son or her boyfriend. More than anything, you wish she'd get a ride out of town and start over.
Better (relatively speaking) "stupid" comedy picks for teens include Billy Madison and Dodgeball.
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Sexual ContentEspecially obnoxious sexual innuendo for a movie targeted at older tweens and teens: John hides under Woodcock's bed, and then Woodcock and John's mother enter and have noisy sex, with the son beneath and the mattress sagging onto his face. Other visuals include Woodcock making a boy strip to his underpants. John tells his mother that Woodcock "touched me," then says it's not true. John listens to his mother and Woodcock having sex in the next room (moans). A woman says she's a sex addict. And then there's the fact that Woodcock's very name is an innuendo. |
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ViolenceMostly abusive slapstick, with Woodcock slamming boys with basketballs and taking a bat to their crotches as an "equipment check." Woodcock beats John with a bat. John falls off a treadmill into a stack of weights and gets a bloody cheek. Nedderman throws a chair at his brother and gives him a black eye. Woodcock and John wrestle, with lots of body slamming and yelling and one hit with a chair. |
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LanguageLanguage includes occasional uses of "son of a bitch," "s--t," "a--hole," jackass," "ass," "hell," and "damn." One using of "f-ing" (without the middle part of "f--k"). Lots of obnoxious and deprecating words and phrases, including "fat gelatinous little kids," "little porker," "hicks," and "retard." Some derogatory comments about women and homosexual men as well. |
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Social BehaviorA woman's son and fiancé fight constantly, their one-upsmanship mostly icky and childish. Even when they make up, they're competing. |
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CommercialismJourney T-shirt, mentions of Oprah and Judge Joe Brown. Tyra Banks appears as herself on her TV show. |
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Drug/Alcohol/TobaccoJohn and Maggie drink in bar; she also smokes cigarettes in a few scenes. On a plane, Maggie tells the stewardess that she wants a regular-sized bottle, as "I'm an alcoholic, not a Barbie doll." Woodcock drinks beer a few times. Woodcock's ex-wife drinks liquor and smokes cigarettes. |
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