In Drillbit Taylor, bullied high schoolers recruit a bodyguard. Charlie (Anton Yelchin), a misbehavior-prone rich kid who’s exhausted the local supply of private schools, decides to make friends with the bully. I had trouble buying Charlie’s quickie transformation from clueless transfer student (he wears his insignia jacket to his first day at public school) to cool-kid confidante. The inverted relationship between Charlie and his hapless mother (Hope Davis), who’s more like his best friend, is better. So is the one between Charlie’s love interest and her dad, the hapless school principal. Robert Downey scores as this sympathetic antagonist, and I expect to see more of Kat Dennings, as the daughter. The humor is mostly understated (i.e., rarely laugh-aloud funny), and psychiatrists may object to the portrayal of their colleagues as credulous pill-pushers. (Charlie appropriates their peculiar skills to ply to his classmates, in return for that most precious of teen commodities, popularity.) Still, some originality makes it worth watching for those tired of typical teen comedies.
IMDB link
viewed 3/26/08; reviewed 3/27/08
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