REVIEW - BAD WORDS

I see what Jason Bateman's doing here. He's taking the vitriolic, scatological, un-PC humour that has bolstered the success of many American comedy stars in recent years, and stripping it of all (or most) of the niceties that have been employed to leaven their impact, offset their coarseness. That sounds like Bad Words is gonna be a bit of a mean-spirited bummer, and it is, but I respect Bateman's non-conformity, and his explicit suggestion that we'd all be better off if we just stopped giving a shit. Especially about our kids. Still, respect is a secondary concern when a film is so openly trying to make you laugh - humour is the primary concern, and it's all the more imperative when said film is as plain and predictable as Bad Words. It's hard to discern specifically what works and what does not work about Bateman's film, comedically, since the comedy is near-constant, the laughs sporadic, and the particular content of the jokes which successfully land ever-changing. In this sense, Bad Words could perhaps have done with a handsome comedic cleanse, sifting out all of the bottom-feeding jokes that are present only as filler. But then with what would we be left? On paper, the premise and the cast together promise far more than they deliver in practice, since Bateman has already sifted out so much from his usual comedic blueprint, and rendered swathes of his film strangely barren. Is this an audacious departure from an established actor, or a juvenile mistake from a green filmmaker? I suspect his intentions were audacious indeed, but his method of applying them brings to light his ability to cannily determine what elements a comedy does not need to be a hit, and his inability to determine what elements these ought to be replaced with.