Drillbit Taylor: Budget Bodyguard
for crude sexual references throughout, strong bullying, language, drug references and partial nudity.
Reviewed by: David Criswell, Ph.D.
CONTRIBUTOR
| Moral Rating: | Extremely Offensive |
| Moviemaking Quality: |
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| Primary Audience: | Teens |
| Genre: | Comedy |
| Length: | 1 hr. 42 min. |
| Year of Release: | 2008 |
| USA Release: |
March 21, 2008 (wide—2,700 theaters) |
| Featuring | Leslie Mann, Alex Frost, Josh Peck, Owen Wilson, Danny R. McBride, Valerie Tian, Troy Gentile, Matt Walsh, Jack Salvatore Jr., Jennifer Lawrence, See all » |
| Director |
Steven Brill “Without a Paddle” |
| Producer | Judd Apatow, Susan Arnold, Kristofor Brown, Donna Roth, Richard Vane, Desiree Van Til |
| Distributor |
 Paramount Pictures Corporation, a subsidiary of ViacomCBS |
“You get what you pay for.”
This easter weekend did not feature any Biblical epics, nor (apparently) any family films. I thought that “Drillbit Taylor” might fit in with the later, but I was sorely mistaken. The plot of “Drillbit Taylor” seemed as if it could not fail, and teamed with rising star Owen Wilson, it certainly looked promising, but reality hits hard. “Drillbit Taylor” fails on almost every possible level; especially the family-friendly level.
The story of Drillbit revolves around a group of kids who are the victims of school bullies. They promptly decide to hire a bodyguard to protect them, but… as the ad says… “you get what you pay for.” Sounds good. Right? Wrong. First of all, “Drillbit…” is a crude comedy featuring several scenes of rear nudity as Drillbit bathes naked on the beach, several scenes of urination including people urinating on one another, numerous sexual innuendos, implies sexual intercourse on several occasions, between 65 and 91 obscene words (according to those who count these words) including the s___ word and a___ word, and, of course, violence galore. In one scene, someone's pinky is even cut off (which was supposed to be funny). The character of Drillbit is also bad, as he is a liar and con artist and thief who tries to steal money from these kids. Of course, we all know that his heart is softened, and he eventually helps the kids with a predictable, cliched, and violent ending.
It is hard to review a movie that has so little good to say about it. There were no role models with whom the audience could sympathize. Although we could sympathize with the victims of bullies, we ultimately find nothing funny about their predicaments nor the resolutions to it, which are remarkably unfunny and predictable.
“Drillbit Taylor” is a good example of how Hollywood can ruin a good idea with crude humor and juvenile ramblings that look as if they were written by the teenage bullies who were in the film. The movie might have been good had it been done right with someone like Chuck Norris in the lead role. Owen Wilson may be carving a place for himself in modern comedies, but he had better start reading the scripts all the way through and make better choices, or he could be relegated to making these kinds of movies for a long time.
Violence: Heavy / Profanity: Heavy / Sex/Nudity: Heavy
See list of Relevant Issues—questions-and-answers.
Moral rating: Offensive / Moviemaking quality: 2
Moral rating: Average / Moviemaking quality: 3½
Moral rating: Extremely Offensive / Moviemaking quality: 1
Moral rating: Extremely Offensive / Moviemaking quality: 1½
Language: I think there was a bad word in every single scene I saw. But not only did the grownups say bad words, the children also say bad words and there parents went right along along with there own children cussing. The worst cussing seen was when the fat kid and one of the bullies had a wrap off and there was a cuss word in about every sentence.
Sex/Nudity: There were a few scenes of nudity where Drillbit was taking a shower on the beach. There was also a seen where the teacher and Drillbit have sex off screen. You just get the impression but you can tell that they did.
Violence: There was a little bit of violence in the movie. It was mostly fist fights with no blood. The most violence was when one of the bullies throws a sword at Drillbit's pinky and it falls off.
Even though this movie was offensive, it was also extremely funny. I think I laughed throughout the whole movie. I would not take someone who gets easily offended or any child under the age of 12 to see this movie though. I would recommend this movie to anyone else though if you want a good laugh and don't get offended easily. …
Moral rating: Very Offensive / Moviemaking quality: 4
My Ratings: Moral rating: Offensive / Moviemaking quality: 3