Educational

Hugh Jackman and Allison Janney together in one movie. That's all it took to put Bad Education on my radar. But it took a year or so for it to finally get "on my TV screen" to actually watch it.

Bad Education is based on real life events that took place in a Long Island school district in 2002: an embezzlement scandal begins to come to light, the theft of money from the school system's funds. And there seems to be absolutely no bottom to the crime; the deeper that people dig, the more corruption and fraud are revealed.

Before this movie, I never would have thought of Hugh Jackman and Allison Janney as particularly similar actors. But consider. They're both generally known for winning charisma: they do have a screen persona widely thought of as their "true" self, they are often cast in roles that let them show it, and people love it. Yet also, both can be quite chameleon-like, and do take transformative roles where they'll be quite unlikable... and the audience will enjoy that too. You could come into this movie expecting a great actor team-up, or a great sparring match, depending on whether the story bonds their characters together or pits them against each other.

Unfortunately, Bad Education kind of squanders both performers. They're both solid, of course (expect nothing less), but this story doesn't demand much of their considerable talent. Bad Education is a fairly "just the facts" recounting of this scandal, and really doesn't give you much insight into the minds of people at its core. I suppose maybe there just wasn't much insight to give? Stealing money from a school district is sociopathic behavior (no "borderline" about it), and sociopathy doesn't seem like it needs (or even has) much explanation beyond "I wanted to." These characters simply don't have much of an inner life for the actors to reveal to us.

It is an interesting story though, with some surprising reveals along the way (assuming you don't know much about the real life events). There are also moments where the matter-of-fact approach of the film actual serves it pretty well. (Small spoiler here about Jackman's character; skip the rest of the paragraph if you don't want to know.) The superintendant played by Hugh Jackman is revealed to be gay in the course of the movie, and it's not a capital-M Moment. It's not offered up as the key to his personality (though it is a piece of the puzzle that is the character's secrecy and vanity). It's not vital to the plot, and you could imagine that a movie made just a few years ago simply would have omitted it from the story. Instead, Hugh Jackman has some romantic scenes, played no differently than they would have been opposite a woman.

I'd give Bad Education a B-. It's probably not a movie anyone should go out of their way to watch, though I would imagine most people would like it well enough (ish) if they did watch it.