Dewey Finn (Jack Black) is first seen as a guitarist with a rock band. While the band drones on like most middle-of-the-road bands performing at a bar, Finn is in love with himself with guitar solos that go too long and ripping off his shirt even though you’d think the collective will of everyone in the room would keep it on. Before you know it, Finn is fired by his band (a scene in which he berates the band for “selling out”; one wonders what his phony posturing was. Cue the first ringing of falseness) and has no money to pay the rent to his substitute teacher brother and fiancee whom he lives with.
Low and behold, Dewey gets a phone call from a prestigious private elementary school needing his brother’s services. Dewey poses as his brother and gets away with it (ring) and goes into his first class without a lesson plan. After he hears them in a music class, he decides that he can use them as his band in a Battle of the Bands competition to get back at his old band. As he assembles them, they turn out be just dandy. These 10-year-olds are even better than his old band! Why he even uses his “charm” to shut up the spinsterish principal (Joan Cusack). Ring!!
Now I know this is a comedy, but when the script resorts to using cliches within the first five minutes (the overbearing, shrewish fiancee), I may laugh but it’s not going to be that hearty. The breaking point of my tolerance for the script is when Dewey asks the class what they listen to. The skinny, blond girl says Christina Aguilera; the black boy says Puff Daddy; the ambiguously gay boy with the lisp says Liza Minelli. Ha, ha, ha. How painfully stereotypical can you get?
Jack Black has been revered as a strong, scene-stealing supporting actor in decent movies like Orange County and High Fidelity and even mindless drivel like Saving Silverman. With School of Rock, Jack Black takes his first step from supporting player to leading actor. Your opinion of the film will probably depend on your opinion of Black because he is in virtually every scene of the film. I think Black is a great physical comedian in a supporting role and strongly suggest he go back to that. 108 minutes is hard to take as he screams out every joke and hams up every moment if he thinks the action’s getting stale. While I did laugh some of the movie, I was also aware at every moment how hard he was working to get every last laugh out of every last joke. Unintentional desperation isn’t that funny, especially when it’s as labored as Black’s is.
I’d say something about the other characters, but I can’t; they’re hardly more than one-dimensional (including the kids who are all given exactly one talent, no more, no less) and not that interesting. Cusack does what she can with an underwritten part but after her schoolmarm principal goes under her fifteenth change of heart, I saw her merely as a plot device.
Perhaps if Jack Black and the writing team had gone for broke for comedy, I wouldn’t feel as conflicted as I do. Despite Dewey’s being lazy, irresponsible, rude, ignorant, and selfish, the script wants you to love him, not just like him. The character is given way too many moments to show his “human” side. When the fat black girl doesn’t want to go on stage because she thinks people will laugh at her, Dewey tells her that she has talent, something everyone wants. As I watched this, there was this ringing in the back of my head telling me that the only reason he’s telling her this is because he needs her on stage, he couldn’t care less about her problems. Then there’s when he sits down with the other teachers and says the adage, “If you can’t do, teach. If you can’t teach, teach gym” and they laugh along with him. I know many teachers who would beat him to death. It’s moments like this and another scene where he somehow eludes the police that make you sit there and go, huh?
The director is Richard Linklater. The only reason I mention this is because he made the groundbreaking and innovative animated film Waking Life two years ago and cannot fathom why he would want to direct this uninspired and cliched comedy.
So do the kids not mind being used as tools in Dewey’s scheme? Does the tightly wound principal not mind being made a fool of and have a change of heart? Do the parents eventually think it’s great that they’re spending $15,000 a year to finance their kids’ “rock” learning? Does the overbearing fiancee “get hers” in the end? I won’t answer these questions, but if you don’t already know the answer, you should see School of Rock just to find out. You’ll probably laugh, but the second those credits role that bitter aftertaste in your mouth is probably the superficiality of the movie.