“Drillbit Taylor” is a derivative movie even by high school comedy standards.

It is bloated with familiar themes and plot
points, predictable jokes, and a leading man with a Will Ferrell-esque talent to rehash the same shtick ad infinitum.

The film wanders from the formula enough to present a few amusing sequences, but nothing worth wading through the entire 102 minutes of mediocrity for.

At the beginning of their freshman year of high school, three friends, (Troy Gentile, “Nacho Libre”; Nate Hartley, “The Great Buck Howard”; David Dorfman, “The Ring”) find themselves mercilessly tormented by a sociopath bully (Alex Frost, “Stop
Loss”) and his crony (Josh Peck, “Drake and Josh”).

The boys decide to hire a bodyguard, and wind up employing Drillbit Taylor (Owen Wilson), the only person who will work for themoney they can pay.

Taylor begins training the boys to protect themselves and teaching them how to handle tough life situations with what seems to be sage advice from a former Army special operative.

What they don’t know is that Taylor is that he is actually a homeless man, wanted for defecting from the Army.

Taylor is initially using the kids to con them out of money andvaluables, so he can run to Canada, free of all repercussions
for his actions.

As predictable as it could be, Drillbit ends up posing as a substitute teacher at the boys’ high school to keep a closer eye on them.

Muddled in the pratfalls and seemingly endless barrage of bullying, Taylor wins over his beautiful co-worker (Leslie Mann, “Knocked Up”), starts paying some clever retribution to the bullies, and the boys start to earn some respect among their peers.

But without fail, Taylor is exposed as a fake and it looks as though the boys are in for the beating of a lifetime.

Will Taylor run for the border and leave the boys to their doom, or redeem himself by helping them give the bully what’s
coming to him in an uplifting sequence of empowerment for The Little Guy?

Anybody who has ever seen a teen comedy already knows the answer to that.

Predictability aside, there are some fun to be had with this movie. Frost is a delight as the tyrannical bully. His character comes off as the loud little brother of Javier Bardem’s Anton Chigurh from “No Country for Old Men.”

Gentile’s outspoken, foul-mouthed Ryan is also a very fun character, though one that has been seen before. He lands somewhere in between a younger Jonah Hill and an older Eric Cartman. Gentile and the others are functional protagonists, but the audience will end up rooting for them more out of
disdain for Frost’s character than love of our heroes.

Owen Wilson, for what it’s worth, is consistent with his character acting.

His Drillbit Taylor is for all intents and
purposes, the same character Wilson played in “Wedding Crashers,” “Zoolander,” and essentially every other comedy he’s acted in.

His laid back, drawling delivery and relaxed
persona are likeable enough, but by now audiences have to be hankering to see something new from Wilson.

“Drillbit Taylor” is a competent film that fails to stand out as great or horrible. The teenage audience this is so clearly
aimed at will probably eat it up, but the movie will in all likeliness fall flat for those who demand more from their
comedies.

2.5 out of five stars

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