“Drillbit Taylor” isn't as sharp-witted as predecessors

From the “Weird Science” tradition of geek-outsourcing comes “Drillbit Taylor,” the latest – and, arguably, least funny – of the extended family of Judd Apatow-produced comedies. It's not “Superbad.” Just sorta bad. Co-written by Apatow regular Seth Rogen – with an uncredited story assist by “Weird Science” creator John Hughes – the movie tells the story of two anguished freshman nerds who hire a bargain-basement bodyguard (Owen Wilson, in his first post-meltdown role) to protect them from a sadistic schoolyard bully.

The nerd protagonists are a stock pair; essentially, younger versions of the Mutt and Jeff duo played by Jonah Hill and Michael Cera in “Superbad.” Ryan (Troy Gentile from “Nacho Libre”) is a wiseacre fat kid who looks a little like Chunk from “Goonies” in a perm. His painfully-thin sidekick, Wade (Nate Hartley from “Unlicensed”), has been reduced to second-class status in his own home by his macho-jerk stepfather (shades of Chet from “Weird Science”).

The one thing director Steven Brill (working again, miraculously, after helming two execrable Adam Sandler movies, “Mr. Deeds” and “Little Nicky”) gets right in “Drillbit Taylor” is the unrepentant glee of the schoolyard sadist and the primal, abject fear of his victims. Ryan and Wade only draw the ire of the bully Filkins (Alex Frost) because they intervene on behalf of Emmit (David Dorfman from “The Ring”), a freshman homunculus so brazenly dorky that he makes McLovin from “Superbad” look like Billy Dee Williams. (Tellingly, the rating guidelines for “Drillbit” include “strong bullying.”)

Enter Drillbit, a homeless Santa Monica panhandler who answers the boys' online ad for a bodyguard and fools them into believing that he really WAS discharged from the army for “unauthorized heroism.” It would be nice to report that the famously-troubled Wilson (“The Darjeeling Limited”) steals the show, but he really doesn't. Mostly, his scenes can be classified under the “fooling around” heading: figuratively, when he teaches the boys made-up martial arts techniques such as “Mexican judo,” and literally, in a tacked-on romantic subplot involving a turned-on English teacher (Leslie Mann).

The funniest scenes involve Gentile's “8 Mile”-style rap-off with his upperclassman tormentor, and it's hard to watch the kid and not suspect that Rogen – the star of Apatow's “Knocked Up” and screenwriter of “Superbad” – has simply franchised another, younger version of himself. That's cool, man. Keep ‘em coming. If you've got the Jew-fros, we've got the time.


‘Drillbit Taylor’
Stars: Owen Wilson, Leslie Mann, Troy Gentile, Nate Hartley
Behind the scenes: Directed by Steven Brill, from a script by Kristofor Brown and Seth Rogen
Rating: PG-13 (crude sexual references throughout, strong bullying, language, drug references and partial nudity)
Running time: 1 hour, 42 minutes.
Grade: C