Drillbit Taylor

Review in a Hurry:  The latest release from the Judd Apatow factory (does anyone else make comedies these days?) features three dorky kids hiring a dorky bodyguard (Owen Wilson) to protect them from a psychopath in training. The movie shares DNA with a bunch of '80s teen flicks, but it's still funny, if not exactly filled with surprises.

The Bigger Picture:  Wade (Nate Hartley, a real discovery in his first major role) and Ryan (Troy Gentile) are typically mismatched best friends. One's "freakishly skinny," the other's fat. Despite that, they plan to make high school the best years of their lives.

But when Wade makes the mistake of defending a geek (David Dorfman, the creepy boy from The Ring) from the rabid school bully (Alex Frost), all three become the bully's targets. Parents are clueless, the principal is indifferent and everyone else just wants to avoid the shrapnel.

Enter Drillbit Taylor (Wilson), a homeless guy living the Matthew McConaughey lifestyle on Santa Monica, Calif., beach. Taylor wants to earn enough money for a plane ticket to Canada—or steal it, whatever. The kids, desperate, buy into his con even though he's woefully unqualified for the job of protecting them.

You might think you wandered into a John Hughes film circa 1984. (In fact, Hughes does get a credit for screen story, under a pseudonym). Very little has changed since then. There's even a cameo from Adam Baldwin, who played the title role in My Bodyguard, which had almost the exact same plot.

It's not spoiling anything to tell you Drillbit has to redeem himself, the kids have to learn to stand up for themselves and there's a big showdown at the end. But it's all entertaining, especially with the Apatow-patented dialogue, in this case from screenwriters Kristofor Brown and Seth Rogen.

The 180—a Second Opinion:  There's a nagging sense through the whole flick that Owen Wilson was just tacked onto what could have been a story about the kids alone. That's not helped by the slack pacing, the second act that's basically a series of montages and sloppy editing that has characters refer to scenes that didn't make the final cut.