Drillbit Taylor
March 26th, 2008, 11:07 am · Post a Comment · posted by Charlton
While a lot of the humor of Drillbit Taylor may be juvenile, this latest film from director Steven Brill -(Mr. Deeds, Joe Dirt) is a success for every person who was ever the outcast nerd picked on by malevolent upperclassman bully’s in high school. Drillbit Taylor also succeeds because it doesn’t succumb to the temptation to use crass and vile jokes about butts, excrement or farting (although there are a couple of scenes that involve bullying at the urinals that work well in telling the story).
Drillbit Taylor (Owen Wilson - Wedding Crashers, Starsky & Hutch) is a career vagrant, living in secluded wooded areas that are next to civilized society. By day he panhandles and begs for money in traffic. When three boys who have been bullied at school post an ad online for a body guard, Drillbit is one of the responders and agrees to be their bodyguard for a paltry sum. The problem is that Drillbit is only after money and makes pretenses at protecting the boys from bully Filkins (Alex Frost). Frost’s role as the sociopathic 18 year old bully is frightening. His ice-cold dead stare and ability to transition from evil to sympathetic is chilling and foretells a promising career in film.
Drillbit Taylor is predictable in plot, yet fresh. And being that it is a story of the weak triumphing over the powerful it will have a successful run both in theaters and on DVD.
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