Drillbit Taylor - Ein Mann für alle Unfälle

I love IMDb.com. I just came here (after seeing the movie) and saw that John Hughes (using a pseudonym) was one of the writers of this movie. That makes sense, because the movie covers the awkwardness, danger and constant potential for life-ruining humiliation that is freshman year high school. Being "skinny, scared and lonely", as Drillbit Taylor puts it.

One of the other writers is the awesome Seth Rogen, co-writer & co-star of "Superbad" and co-star of "Knocked Up".

Owen Wilson is funny, sexy and heartwarming in this role. The trio of geeky lads who hire Owen as their protector are all played by wonderful young actors. The Apatow organization seems to have a genius for finding great and funny teen actors. I was especially impressed by Alex Frost (he plays the bully) who I think has stardom in his future.

The small roles of the film are filled by standup comics and "The Daily Show" alumni. Good talent all around.

The movie is not perfect. It's front-loaded -- meaning the first half has so many laughs you can't hear all the lines for the laughter. Then it suddenly slows down in the second half. It's still interesting -- just not as funny. And when you get to the violent fighting, that dries up the laughs.

Overall though, any film from the Apatow organization is going to be 6 times funnier and more inventive than the average movie comedy out there. So go have some laughs.

There's not much new you can really do with a high school comedy, but at least the notion of Owen Wilson playing a jakey posing as a bodyguard promises a few laughs and a half.

It's a decent enough family comedy, and there are a few laugh out loud moments, but they're spread too thin to make this a classic jape. The 3 bullied teens are hugely likable though, and Wilson has such an easygoing charm that it's difficult not to enjoy it, even if he does work better when he's got a proper sparring partner to riff off.

The end result is likable without being lovable, funny without being hilarious and enjoyable without being particularly memorable.

'Drilbit Taylor' is a teen movie that revolves around three highschool students being bullied and in order to protect themselves they plan to hire a bodyguard. The film has its own charm and is quite likable thanks mostly to Wilson's chemistry with the three teens. Another thing I liked about this movie is that it wasn't overloaded with sex and crudeness which seems to be a forced compulsory requirement of every teen movie these days (a recent example being the awful 'Superbad'). The teen actors, Nate Hartley and Troy Gentile are very good. Hartley particularly gives a natural performance. Owen Wilson uses his superb comic timing and does nothing short of great. What I didn't like about 'Drilbit Taylor' is that it tends to go unnecessarily over the top with some sequences and the fight scene in the end is a little too violent. The bullying scenes were meant to be funny (at least that's the impression I got given the background score and the way it was executed) but with me they had the opposite effect and I wonder how kids who are actually bullied would feel after watching such scenes being used as comic relief. However on the other hand, it might be uplifting to them as the point of the movie was to stand up for oneself and his friends. Anyway, 'Drilbit Taylor' is fun entertainment. Not the best of its kind but still good enough.

Gosh. Forget that this was a flop, and you simply cannot enjoy it in any way. And forget that you simply cannot watch this desperately lost character without reflecting on the actor.

Instead follow this as another in the Hughes-inspired genre, where the story matters less that the cleanliness of the stereotypes. That's really what this is all about. It innovates not at all in the whiny simpy Jew, and earnest fat kid, and that's too bad because we could well be rid of them. But it does innovate a bit in the bully (who is here not a jock), the love interest (here a bespeckled Asian girl), and of course with the Wilson character.

Its in this experiment that the film relies and fails. There's this oft-used balance between mental unbalance and the fantasy of the ideal. Depp does this well, with perhaps the touchstone being his Brando-inspired Don Juan DeMarco. I may have seen a score of popular movies in the last year that use this. My own central reference is "They Might Be Giants."

But in order for this to work, you have to yearn for the fantasy yourself. You want K-Pax. You want romance, clarity, purity. I suppose it could work for fidelity and family as they try here, but not by the route they chose. I guess they simply banked on Owen being inspired and charming us independently of the character box they put him in. That's what the love interest here is for: to be our surrogate watcher, one who accepts.

Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

I'm one of those "indie-films-or-bust" type of people (with my favorite movies ranging from Amelie to the Darjeeling Limited), so when I saw the preview for Drillbit Taylor, it was an immediate turn-off for me. I saw it as boob, nuts, and ass jokes (aka crude teenage humor) and I was not excited to see it. However, an opportunity arose to see the movie well before it came out and I took the chance to see it.

To my great surprise, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie to its fullest. Sure Owen Wilson is funny, but the kids stole the show. The crude humor was left to a minimum and the funniest lines were the really subtle ones that almost everyone missed. This movie had heart and a good message (which you don't normally see in mainstream teenage movies *excluding Juno*). Although I know it's probably not gonna make huge headlines, I feel like this movie needs more recognition than it's gonna get. I want to see this movie go big, and I'm excited to see what people say about it. So take it from me, it's funny and it's not disappointing.