Lumsdal Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Justina The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Tss5078 Following his Old School Road Trip, and long before his epic Hangover, Todd Phillips went back in time to remake the classic School For Scoundrels, with disappointing results. The story follows an insecure loser in love, who takes a class on how to become more appealing to women. His teacher is a total player, who teaches the class to the best of his abilities, but in the end, he has the same goal as the others, and ultimately falls for the same girl as the loser. When seeing a Todd Phillips comedy, that is unrated, and features Billy Bob Thornton, you should expect to see a raunchy good time, but that's not what happens here. To Phillips, keeping as close to the original story was more important than modernizing it for today's audiences, and the result was a film that fails to live up to expectations. This film needed a major injection of raunch, the kind Thornton became known for in films like Bad Santa. Instead you get what amounts to an average, mediocre, comedy. In this film, Thornton is paired with Jon Heder, Napoleon Dynamite himself, but as with that film, his monotone lovable loser act, gets old very quickly. This film has all the makings of a wild ride and a terrific comedy, but instead it falls flat on it's face, as just another ordinary, run of the mill, romantic comedy.

g-bodyl I was reading the reviews for this film and I can't believe how many people are bashing this film. I thought this a really funny film with likable characters. I also can relate to some of these characters which is really rare in cinema.This is about some loser named Roger who takes a self-confidence class taught by the hot-headed Mr.P. As the class progresses, Mr.P and Roger go head to head against each other.As I mentioned previously, I found some of these characters very relatable especially Roger played wonderfully by Jon Heder. Billy Bob Thornton is especially great as Mr.P. Both Heder and Thornton have excellent chemistry.This movie is really funny! The paintball scene is my favorite part of the movie. Also I give credit to the scenes that had Ben Stiller featured. I rate this film 9/10.

Peter Young School for scoundrels. I must admit, the title was a bit confusing; Surely school for losers would be more apt, if a little harsh. John Heder is actually quite a good lead actor, not quite as dopey as his character is in napoleon dynamite. Billy Bob Thornton plays nearly exactly the same character as he played with less success in Mr Woodcock. And the only character who really grated was the ultra rude flatmate of the love interest (Sarah Silverman) who annoyed me so much as no-one is actually going to be that rude surely!The last half an hour was a hit and miss affair, some really well done other parts beyond cheesy, but not a bad way to spend a couple of hours.

morpheusatloppers Reading the other comments on this film showed that few people realize the title, at least, hails from a British film released in 1960, which while having the same name, is fundamentally different. Indeed, I could find NO reference to the original in the film's credits (which I suspect saved them some CASH).Which brings into focus the whole issue of "remakes'.For instance, the recent film entitled "The Italian Job" was really NOT a remake. It was merely the central character's favourite film and it "inspired" him to use the techniques in the film to pull off a job. In fact, the recent film might have done better with a completely DIFFERENT title, as it must have irritated many viewers who were expecting a true remake. In fact, if you forget about the original film, the "remake" - as a stand-alone film - is actually quite GOOD.The same could be said of "The House On Haunted Hill".On the other hand, TRUE remakes are usually RUBBISH. Treatments of great modern French films and classic British and American films almost ALWAYS suffer in comparison with their originals. This writer avoids them like the plague - I only watched this one (on TV) to see how the subtlety of the original's theme of Lifemanship, Gamesmanship and One-Upmanship had been handled by Hollywood - it hadn't.In fact, apart from Billy Bob Thornton's character name of "Dr P" (an obvious reference to Alistair Sim's character - "Potter" - taken from the original writer of the books which formed the basis for the original film) and the inclusion of a game of tennis (Ian Carmichael did not HIT Sim in the original!) the only thing taken from the original was the concept of a secret school designed to turn losers into winners.But in the original, this was achieved by the use of "ploys" designed to instill doubt and confusion in the students' opponents - "Your opponent is everyone who is not YOU" - while in the "remake", the "techniques" involved were more akin to a self-assertiveness class, with subtlety being replaced by naked aggression.So, as with the "remakes" of "The Italian Job" and "The House On Haunted Hill", this is a film that did itself NO favours by trying to be another example of Hollywood's OBSESSION with remakes. As with the afore-mentioned, it was actually quite a good film on IT'S OWN MERIT.