Despite his very real and very troubling personal difficulties recently, Owen Wilson has built a kind of niche market on playing loveable losers. Like Matthew McConaughey, and to a certain extent Wedding Crashers cohort Vince Vaughn, he’s cornered a significant market share of the Peter Pan syndrome afflicted; grown men who won’t grow-up, stuck in a seemingly permanent state of arrested development. It’s an act that can wear thin (see: anything McConaughey’s done lately), but hey, you have to appreciate a guy that knows how to exploit his niche.
Wilson plays the eponymous AWOL army ranger that lives as a bum and spends all day hanging out with his bum friends. After his latest park eviction, Drillbit decides that he’s had enough and is packing up and leaving California for the “Great White North,” all he needs is 240 bucks for a plane ticket, 80 for a good winter coat and another 50 for the “federales” (meaning: Mounties). To get the money, Drillbit erroneously accepts a gig as bodyguard for a trio of high school freshmen (Nate Hartley, Troy Gentile and David Dorfman) looking for protection from a pair of high school bullies (Alex Frost and Josh Peck).
From a script co-written by Seth Rogen it should be very unsurprising that the film comes across a little as Superbad-light: the Prequel. The three-friends: Nate, Ryan (AKA: T-Dawg) and Emmett are more or less the 1.0 versions of Evan, Seth and Foggell (AKA: McLovin’). Having said that though, the high school geek is still an underserved demographic when it comes to the hero role in a comedy like this, so any effort to give them the spotlight is appreciated.
Having said that though, there is a formula at work in Drillbit and that makes it rather obvious and predictable. I mean, come on… we all know Drillbit’s going to be found out, that kids are going to have to stand up to their tormentors solo and that despite his initially selfish ends, that Drillbit will form a real bond with the boys and grow into his role as their protector. Too bad then that the movie is actually really quite funny, it makes it so much harder to hate.
It also sort of reminded me of a movie from a few years ago called Max Keeble’s Big Move in which the title character, ever the perennial dork, plots revenge on all those at school that wronged him before moving away. (Oddly enough, helping this connection is young actor Josh Peck, who plays one of the bullies here, but one of the picked on kids in Keeble.) It was bright and funny too, although, like Drillbit, not wholly original. But the point is: who cares? As long as you’re laughing it doesn’t matter. Wilson’s great, the kids are great and they are all great working together.
Like other reason comedic successes, Drillbit Taylor comes form the factory Apatow, and admittedly this is not their strongest effort. What I don’t believe however is that this is an indication of slippage on the part of an ordinarily razor sharp production house, but I can’t ignore that it could have been better either. Overall, it’s on par with Walk Hard in terms of talent and hilarity; not bank breaking funny, but still very satisfying.
