Drillbit Taylor

Owen Wilson stars as Drillbit Taylor – the best looking, most charming and mentally competent homeless man you will ever meet. He lives in a roughshod camp he set up overlooking the Santa Monica Pier and spends his days engaging in wide ranging discussion about life and dreams with his fellow homeless guys (who also don’t seem as scary and realistic as the homeless woman I saw on the train last night who was arguing with herself, and threatening to kick her own butt). However, that life is about to change.

Two nerdy best friends are about to start their freshman year in high school with hopes they will become the cool kids they desire to be. Wade (Nate Hartley) is the 90-pound weakling too scared to talk to the pretty girl he loves from afar. Ryan (Troy Gentile) is the funny fat kid who wants to be a rapper. Of course, they instantly become the target of bullying from the evil and sadistic Filkins (Alex Frost), when Wade decides to step up and help defend the small fry, Emmit (the unfortunately named David Dorfman, who starred in The Ring and The Ring 2).

When the three hire Drillbit, who claims to be a former bad ass Army commando, to be their bodyguard, will he be able to fend off Filkins, or does he have other motives?

Anyone over the age of 35 will recognize the similarities between Drillbit Taylor and My Bodyguard, but writers Kristofor Brown and Seth Rogan are smart enough and funny enough to throw in a great joke about that. If only the rest of the movie was as hip, imaginative and cool.

Don’t get me wrong. Drillbit Taylor is a funny movie, but a movie without many memorable moments and it suffers from a great deal of predictability. Brown and Rogan provide a very easy to understand and simple plot we have seen many times before as the boys start to “train” with Drillbit. We witness the horrible bullying perpetrated against them (with a name spelled like Kristofor, you know that guy saw some swirlies in his day and probably injected some bad memories into the movie), and would you be surprised if Drillbit had to make a decision between doing the right and wrong thing? They even decide to repeat the entire plot about halfway through, as if they couldn’t think of any new directions or possibilities for these characters. Luckily, the kids save Drillbit Taylor.

I’m not saying these kids are the second coming of Shirley Temple or Haley Joel Osment (back when he was cute), but they have an ability to overcome the stereotypes they are portraying. Hartley is the classic underdog who wins us over as he rises up against his tormentors. Gentile, while spouting off one-liners and irascible dialogue reminiscent of a borscht belt comedian, only becomes slightly annoying, when he could have been worse, and even Frost does a good job inciting our anger even if the acts are a bit silly. As far as Wilson’s performance, let’s just say he plays the same Owen Wilson we have seen time and time again.

Drillbit Taylor is an acceptable night out if you aren’t a big basketball fan glued to the TV this weekend.

Drillbit Taylor is rated PG-13 for crude sexual references throughout, strong bullying, language, drug references and partial nudity