SCHOOL OF ROCK (2003)

* * * 1/2

PG-13 (rude humour and some drug references), C-108m. USA, Germany

D: Art Linklater. Jack Black, Joan Cusack, Mike White, Sarah Silverman.

Tagline: Mr. Black. Accept no substitute.

If you see just one Jack Black film in your entire life, make it School of Rock. He simply lets the beast loose and gives a blistering performance as Dewey Finn, an overweight musician who eats, drinks, and breathes rock-and-roll. He's a slacker who doesn't pay rent and allows his friend and room mate to pay his share, shows up late for rehearsals, hogs the spotlight, and cheerfully goes along his merry way without considering boring things like rent, bills, or responsibility. That's for drones, dude. He's a creature of the moment. It's not that he's a bad person - he just has better things to do... like rock out! He dreads the idea of a "real" job; to him, that's selling out, man. Giving up what he loves is like giving up oxygen.

Dewey's passion for rock is so all-consuming that when it's timidly suggested that he sell one of his guitars to pay the rent, he asks incredulously, "Would you tell Picasso to sell one of his guitars?"

After one drunken grandstanding stunt too many, he gets the old heave-ho from his own band. Room mate Ned Schneebly (Mike White, who wrote the screenplay especially for Black, who does vocals and guitar for the rock band Tenacious D), a milquetoast substitute teacher, is pressured by bossy girlfriend Patty Di Marco (bitchily played by Sarah Silverman) to give Dewey an ultimatum: Get a "real" job or move out. She's is an emotional vampire, sucking the life out of wussy Ned and licking her lips for more; she's sort of a less malignant version of Melissa, the girlfriend from hell who browbeats poor Ed Helms in The Hangover. If you’ve ever caught her offbeat The Comedy Network’s The Sarah Silverman Show, you'll find her shrewish performance here is quite a departure from her own slacker persona.

With eviction on the horizon, Dewey is on the brink of spiralling depression until opportunity knocks... or rather, rings. He receives a call intended for Ned and after learning that a few weeks of teaching will earn the money he owes, steals Ned's substitute teacher job by impersonating him.

At first, our scruffy scalawag has no respect for the teaching profession, dismissing it as easy money for babysitting a bunch of kids. But when he finds himself teaching fifth grade at a prep school run by the tightly-wound Principal Roz Mullins (the always excellent Joan Cusack), it's a rocky start, and he has to scramble fast to keep up the charade. He might be able to fool Principal Mullins, but these kids are no fools. Movie kids never are.

Awkward and unprepared, he tries to give his students nothing but free time, but as most of us recall, time in a classroom goes slower than spectator golf. It's only when he accidentally overhears their music class that Dewey realizes that some of his students actually have talent, and gets a brilliant idea, telling them that they're going to do a class project called "Rock Band". Not only does it sort of get him off the hook, but he sees an opportunity to create his own band to enter the Battle of the Bands Contest and avenge his ousting from his old band by winning the $20,000 prize. True to 'teacher movies' of this type, Dewey (or "Mr. S", as he calls himself after an unsuccessful attempt to write 'Mr. Schneebly' on the board), finds himself bonding with his students, and even remembering their names by the time the credits start to roll. Aw... nobody saw that coming, did they? Gosh, I sure didn't!

But it's the way he does it that's a joy to watch. Not everyone is musically gifted, so he assigns them real jobs: roadies, security, special effects, costumes, sound, etc. Even groupies (or "cheerleaders" as he describes them to an understandably unimpressed student) get to name the band, and design t-shirts. And just what do you do with a colossally unmusical Type A ten-year-old who threatens to blow the whistle on you for trying to make her a groupie? Why, make her the band manager, of course.

When Mr. S asks the 'musical' ones who their influences are, he's appalled by the answers. When he hears, "Christina Aguilera", you can just see his little rockin' heart breaking. Imagine his reaction to American Idol. That's when he gets serious and decides to expose them to what he considers to be real rock: The Beatles, Janis Joplin, Pink Floyd, AC/DC, and especially Jimi Hendrix, Iggy Pop, and Kurt Cobain. He teaches them the joy of expressing their creativity and stickin' it to the Man. As you'd expect with a 'teacher movie', everyone changes in one way or another. The kids learn to loosen up and feel the joy of challenging themselves. They need him, or there's a chance they'll end up beaten down by convention and rules like poor Ned - especially one young boy who is constantly browbeaten by his humourless father. Boy, does he need a different father figure. Dewey changes too, without compromising who he is. More importantly, he learns when to lead and when to graciously step aside, to be an effective leader and guide their talents so that everyone can contribute to the band and feel a real sense of accomplishment.

Gee... do you think our boy Dewey has found his calling?

Joan Cusack more than holds her own with the more flamboyant Black as the uptight principal with a secret rocker-chick side. She has had a great career as a screen sidekick, and I really wish she would get her own movie. With her wonderfully expressive face and gangly Olive Oyl limbs, she may not be "Hollywood" beautiful, but she's every bit as talented as her brother John and easily steals every scene she's in, including those as Melanie Griffith's gal pal in 1988's Working Girl. She can certainly act better than baby-voiced Griffith, that's for sure. But that's another review... maybe.

It's to Mike White's credit and utter lack of vanity that he lets everyone else eat the scenery. As a writer of such character-based gems as Chuck and Buck, The Good Girl, and Year of the Dog, White is smart enough to let Jack Black do his thing, and then very timidly reminds us that he's there as the unappealing yin to Dewey's yang. Like Ed Helms’ hen-pecked character in The Hangover, Ned is completely cowed and unable to stand up to a female bully. But unlike the other guy, he is so contemptibly weak that you really don’t feel like saving him. It’s too much fun to watch.

“Dewey, maybe you should give up those dreams. I mean, I did..." Ned glances nervously at his fiercely approving fiancée and lamely finishes, "and things are going really great for me." He desperately believes that his path is the smarter, more sensible one, even though he's sure to die slowly from the inside. Patty's thirsty, and she's got that soul-suckin' straw ready.

Even his so-called ‘best friend’ has affectionate contempt for him. Note what Dewey wears on his first day of teaching; the tweedy 'teacher outfit', complete with cardigan, Orville Redenbacher bow tie, and hair neatly combed and parted to the side is ridiculously reminiscent of dorky Archie Andrews from the 1940s comics. It's so strange to see Jack Black with his hair combed, but perfect for the character. With his low opinion of Ned's profession, this is exactly what Dewey Finn would imagine a substitute teacher to look like. He probably dunked Ned's head in a few toilets before they became friends in school. I can just see grade-school Dewey offering 'protection' in exchange for the Anemic One to do his homework for him. It’s safe to assume that he likely recruited Ned as a band member earlier, which is why the photo of Rocker Ned-before-Patty looks hilariously pathetic. And how else could we possibly imagine Ned as a rocker before Patty got her hooks into him?

The Jack is wild here - he's a dervish and force of nature. He's like the illegitimate offspring of John Belushi, Meatloaf, Wolfman Jack, and the Tazmanian Devil. He's practically a cartoon character. Watch the way his eyes dart around as he's scheming, how those beetled eyebrows do a weird 'wave' from one end to the other, especially when he listens to the kids' music class. With a lesser actor, it would be cheap mugging but Black is too good for that, and never winks at the audience. He reminded me of Bill Murray's Tripper Harrison in 1979's Meatballs, another cheerfully anarchic character who inspires the sad sack youngsters in a crappy summer camp to thumb their noses at the Man.

Black shows chops as a serious actor and dials it way down when acting across from thespian heavyweights Nicole Kidman and Jennifer Jason Leigh in Margo at the Wedding (2007), as well as in King Kong (2005) with Naomi Watts. Like fellow madman Jim Carrey, he can do more than just mug and cavort for the camera. I remember watching an old X-Files episode (D.P.O. Season 3, Episode 3) and being completely taken by surprise when I recognized a young Jack Black as the villain's clueless best friend. I should have known then that this guy was lightning in a bottle - it was just a matter of time before someone let it out.

The kids are marvels. Despite being having no professional acting experience, they seem to enjoy working with Wild Jack, and though nobody is likely to pull an Anna Paquin, no one falls into the pit of dreadful kid-acting that seems to permeate Disney's Family Channel either. Best of all, there’s no air guitar or lip-syncing here. They play their own instruments and believably evolve from amateurish band standards to a bona fide rock performance.

In my opinion, the PG-13 rating is too strict. It’s a great family film, and everyone (maybe seven and older) can enjoy it. If anything, maybe your kid will stop bugging you for Guitar Hero™ and ask to learn to play a real instrument.

If not, well, just smile and let them find out the hard way when they throw themselves into a mosh pit and nobody bothers to catch them.