Bateman's 'Bad Words': Bee movie
Jason Bateman directs himself in Bad Words,a black comedy about an adult determined to win a childrens spelling bee.
COMBINE Robert Downey Jr.'s verbal wit, Samuel L. Jackson's way with the F-bomb and W.C. Fields' way with children, and you've got Jason Bateman in "Bad Words."
Bateman plays Guy, an angry (in a caustically funny way) middle-aged man who enters a children's spelling bee, having discovered a loophole in the eligibility rules.
He cannot be beaten - he has a photographic memory of the dictionary - and he cannot be dislodged, no matter how forceful and underhanded the efforts of the bee's organizers (Allison Janney, Philip Baker Hall).
Worse still, he's a very poor sport. It's not enough that he wins with his formidable competitive advantage - he corrupts and unnerves his middle-school-age opponents, taking them out drinking, convincing them that he's just slept with their mothers, etc.
Guy is the worst person ever, so horrible that any actor would naturally want to play him, and the director of "Bad Words" is determined to indulge Bateman at every opportunity, which is not so surprising when you learn that the movie is directed by . . . Jason Bateman.
It's a more-than-competent debut in technical terms, yet like most movies directed by actors, it values performance above all else, including narrative logic.
"Bad Words" is obviously a pitch-black comedy. It is also a mystery, built around the question of why Guy is so determined to win this children's competition. He's carrying on with a reporter (Kathryn Hahn) who eventually finds the source of Guy's motivation - a pat, disappointing reveal that raises more questions about his behavior than it answers.
Still, his darkly funny scenes with Hahn have their own raunchy appeal. And Bateman does even better with young actor Rohan Chand, playing the high-achieving Indian-American boy who becomes Guy's rival, drinking buddy and hooker solicitor.
The script, by Andrew Dodge, was on Hollywood's notorious Black List of screenplays that are highly regarded but too hot too handle for most studios. You can readily see why so many laughed while reading it. You can also, at times, readily see why so many producers passed.