Film

Among the villains of childhood, gym teachers hold a place of honor. Their job seems to consist of the ritualized humiliation of any kid who isn’t a jock. The idea of having to deal with one of these professional sadists again in adult life sounds like comic gold. Alas, Mr. Woodcock is executed like a bad game of dodgeball; many jokes are lobbed, but few hit their target.

John Farley (Scott, affable but bland) has transformed himself from an awkward fat kid into the author of a motivational book about leaving your past behind you. That means, naturally, that he will prove utterly incapable of leaving his own past behind him when he returns to his hometown and finds his mom (Sarandon, looking adrift in an unplayable role) dating his old foe, Mr. Woodcock (Thornton, phoning it in).

Mom inexplicably adores Woodcock, but it’s clear to John and to us that the man is an asshole. So John sets out to break them up and take Woodcock down a peg with a string of ill-considered schemes. This leads to endless scenes in which our hero’s plans backfire and he ends up looking like a jerk. Even if you find that sort of thing hilarious (we don’t), you’ll be pissed off when this movie chickens out on its own meanness in the last half hour. If you’re going to make a comedy of humiliation, at least have the nads to really whip that dodgeball hard.