Movie Review: Drillbit Taylor - Santa Clara Weekly

In 1980 there was a film released with the title of My Bodyguard. It was about a kid who enters a new HS and gets bullied. He hires the kid in school who has a reputation for toughness as his bodyguard. Complications ensue. Adam Baldwin made his screen debut as the bodyguard.

In Drillbit Taylor a group of typical first year high school boys find their first day in class a little rough. One of them is too skinny. One of them is too fat. The third one is about 1 foot tall. They encounter the school bullies. Complications ensue. They decide to hire a bodyguard. They interview a series of tough guys at the local coffee shop. One of them turns out to be Adam Baldwin wearing almost the same outfit he wore in his 1980 debut. He doesn’t get the job. It goes to a homeless misfit and Army deserter Owen Wilson. He moves into the school and poses as a teacher. Most of his plans don’t work. He becomes romantically involved with the cutest teacher since Doris Day tutored Clark Gable in Teachers Pet (1958).

The bullies go on picking on the nerds. They even beat up Drillbit Taylor. Most of what happens is about as surprising as walking into McDonalds and smelling grease. Not much in the way of a movie or a story. The three kids that play the nerds are all cute. OW as Drillbit Taylor is basically OW as every character he has ever played. The plot moves forward to its inevitable and very predictable showdown.

Filmed in and around Santa Monica and LA, absolutely no scenes were shot in Vancouver Canada. Much of the film looks low budget as if it were shot using a home VHS camera and then transferring the result to movie stock. Can you do that? Not worth wasting time and money on at the theater, this one will be just fine as a passable 90 minutes on DVD or free TV.

Rated 2.0 out of 4.0 or C+ if it were on a report card.