Well, now we can finally put Todd Phillips’ untalented ass to bed. Jesus, how hard can it be for people to get when a director sucks dick (without even being gay or actually doing so)? “Road Trip” was an overrated garbage heap riding on the gross-out gag coattails of the retarded-ass phenomenon at the time known as “American Pie” (which, rightfully, has been reduced to a string of straight-to-DVD sequels that likely aren’t any brighter than the first one, just in an era where most people truly are saying “Yes, that’s great, that one dude drank sperm and then somebody peed on somebody’s head, oooooh, sooooo shock-ing, I tooootally couldn’t see that one from a mile away”), and “Old School” worked out so beautifully because Phillips left his natural comic cast alone to do their own thing and make a funny movie with his name on it.

It wasn’t until “Starsky and Hutch” that everyone really seemed to notice how “old school” this filmmaker’s sense of comedic timing and direction is, and now we can call the deal sealed – Todd Phillips isn’t a funny guy. Maybe funny enough to be good for some laughs while hanging out with in person, who knows, but not funny enough to be handed tens of millions of dollars in budget to make a film with.

Okay, now we’ll move on with the actual flick “School for Scoundrels.” I can just picture Phillips, after the panning of “Starsky and Hutch”, going “Darn! We should do another one about school! Remember how good ‘Old School’ was? That’s it, we just have to do another school thing!” Sorry.

Anyway, the first five minutes will throw you off – Jon Heder (Napolean Dynamite) plays a timid meter maid who suffers from a panic attack when two homies he tickets get angry with him – this is funny. You think “Okay, cool, this one may work out.” Heder (already forgot the character’s name) gets shit on throughout the rest of the day, all the way up until when he goes to see his little brother at the community service program he volunteers at to find that not only has his little bro has requested another big bro, but that this is the third time this has happened. When Heder cries, it’s not only funny, we feel bad for him too. We’re excited for the rest of the movie.

Then, David Cross (never as funny as we’re hoping for) tells him about a school that makes timid guys like Jon men. Jon goes, and it is never explained where the hell he gets $5,000 for tuition. The number gets brought up a few times, we know he’s just a meter maid, but it never does get explained. Whatever, hey, we can forgive that.

Then, Billy Bob Thornton comes in as the hardass teacher who’s lines and antics are so predictably hardass, we feel like we’re watching the kind of re-run on TV that we wouldn’t really watch, just flip past in the process of settling for a cooking show that includes food we can’t afford and never really plan to make ourselves once again.

The homies from the beginning return to kill the joke they served in the opening while also making us realize, “Wow, Todd Phillips kind of seems to make black jokes without making them too funny… Maybe he should restrict his none-too-bright comedy to weed and bathroom humor and leave the racial stuff to those who may be able to base it on something more than stereotypes we all got tired of laughing at well before Chris Tucker moved past ‘Friday.’” As far as the class goes, for every Matt Walsh (Old School, Upright Citizens Brigade) there’s a Horatio Sanz (the unfunny fat Hispanic dude who’s passed off as funny in everything he appears in just because he’s fat and Hispanic – oh, except “Boat Trip” with Cuba Gooding Jr. – that one was just absolutely hilarious – yeah, I pissed my pants a few times in “Boat Trip”).

Kill me, kill me, kill me, because she’s good, but I can’t remember the name of the Australian gal from “The Real World 4” and that shitty Zach Braff flick – anyway, she’s a charmer and serves her purpose well as Heder’s dream girl next door, but again, she gets cancelled out by Sarah Silverman’s “heeeey, look at meeee, I’m the dryly sarcastic and so-darn-bitchy-you-just-gotta-love-me Jewish girl who plays the same role in every fucking thing I pop up in because you retards seem to not have caught on to what a one-trick pony I am just yet” bullshit.

The whole damn thing ends up a war between Heder and Billy Bob, and once it stops being funny, it only gets worse – you get irritated at yourself for still being in your seat on the couch, angry when Ben Stiller comes in to actually make this overdone crap even less funny, and then plain furious when the film ends and you realize that you just sat through a damn-near two-hour-long bad comedy.

Billy Bob and Michael Clark Duncan have their real careers to go back to, so hopefully Jon Heder, the Australian chick, Matt Walsh, and the little guy from “Jerry MaGuire” and “High Fidelity” will get past this and move on, they’ve all got something to offer. As for the rest of the sad shitbags who made this pathetic and desperate attempt to keep a long-dead joke by a “writer/director” who has looong overstayed his welcome alive, shame on you. Shame on you and your family names.

(one bong for Heder – he was only doing what his agent told him to)