Mr. Woodcock

Mr. Woodcock
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Craig Gillespie
Written by	Michael Carnes Josh Gilbert
Produced by	Bob Cooper David Dobkin
Starring	Seann William Scott Billy Bob Thornton Susan Sarandon Ethan Suplee Amy Poehler
Cinematography	Tami Reiker
Edited by	Al E. Baumgarten
Music by	Theodore Shapiro
Distributed by	New Line Cinema
Release dates	September 14, 2007
Running time	87 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$22 million
Box office	$25,799,486

Mr. Woodcock is a 2007 comedy directed by Craig Gillespie, and starring Seann William Scott, Billy Bob Thornton, Susan Sarandon, Amy Poehler, and Ethan Suplee. The film was released on September 14, 2007. The film has been rated PG-13 for crude and sexual content (the name itself is a euphemism for an erection), thematic material, language, and a mild drug reference.

Plot

While growing up, John Farley (Seann William Scott) and many of his classmates were being tormented by a sadistic gym teacher named Mr. Jasper Woodcock (Billy Bob Thornton). Things have since turned out quite well for John, who has gone on to become a successful self-help author and motivational speaker about "letting go", inspired by his own experiences. His hometown community offers Farley a reward. His manager initially rejects it as too trivial, without consulting Farley, but Farley is pleased by it and returns to Nebraska to receive it. To his horror Woodcock is now dating his widowed mother Beverly (Susan Sarandon), and soon they are even engaged to be married. To make matters worse for Farley, Mr. Woodcock is being awarded for his years of educating children. Mr. Woodcock's behavior toward Farley is still unpleasant. For his mother's and his own sake John tries to break up the engagement.

To that end, he decides to beat Mr. Woodcock at his own game. He spends the whole day with him, going everywhere with him. First, they visit a gym, where, after a rather long speech, Mr. Woodcock just berates him for constantly talking. The two then go on treadmills, where John attempts to run faster than Mr. Woodcock, and is launched into a set of weights behind him. They then go into a retirement home where John meets Mr. Woodcock's father, a rude wheelchair-bound man. Mr. Woodcock makes the elderly people in the pool run in place, and take laps. He then spots Pulumbo, a wheelchair-bound man sitting in the corner of the room, not swimming in the pool, and decides to push him in. John, thinking he is unable to swim, tries to dive in and save him, but is knocked out by the man (who apparently can swim), and has to be given mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. When he gets home, his old classmate and that man's older brother are there (with the boy having a black eye), with fake evidence of Mr. Woodcock's abuse, consisting of the boy begging an off-camera man he claims to be Mr. Woodcock not to do something, and is immediately hit in the head with a folded up chair. When Mr. Woodcock and Beverly come home, the fake evidence immediately cuts to a scene of the man driving in his truck, ranting about how hot Farley's mom is, wishing he could motorboat her breasts. He tries to rewind the tape, but only ends up repeating parts of his rant, for which he's ejected from the house by Mr. Woodcock's cock. At the carnival Woodcock is better at various games. The one thing John wins is an eating contest; it is a dubious honor, having been fat in the past.

Irritated, he meets up with his old classmate, who says that he has found Mr. Woodcock's ex-wife, whom Mr. Woodcock's father had mentioned earlier. She tells John that they divorced because of infidelity; the reason she had not done that earlier was the great sex with Mr. Woodcock, once he made her black out from pleasure, and made her speak Portuguese, despite having no knowledge of the language. John, thinking Mr. Woodcock is cheating on his mother, decides to expose it to his mom, and he and his classmate go to Mr. Woodcock's house. He staked out for 18 hours, which impressed John. As they came inside, Mr. Woodcock comes up the driveway, but the younger brother in the car tried honking, but it was jammed. As soon they were trying to find evidence, he comes up the stairs forcing them to hide. John under the bed, and his friend in the shutter closet. As soon as Mr. Woodcock comes in, John's mom comes in as well, and they encounter on the bed (an experience which makes Beverly speak a phrase in Portuguese) as John suffered under. With excitement, his friend opened the shutters and recorded the whole scene.

Next they are at the award ceremony for Woodcock. One by one people come up to the stage and praise him for the good that he has done in their life. Then John is awarded the "Corn Cob Key" and during his acceptance speech, he sums up the misery Woodcock has supposedly caused, but he makes a fool of himself. Much of his evidence is busted. His classmate did not die as he thought and his ex-wife cheated on him instead of visa-versa.

After Woodcock threatens to beat up John, Beverly becomes so mad that she breaks up with Woodcock. John, the next day has to do a live video interview with Tyra Banks. His mother tells John that he never thought of what made her happy and always thought about himself. John runs out of his interview in the middle of it and apologizes to Woodcock. They then get into a fight that turns into them, in full costumes, wrestling. It ends with Jasper getting rushed to the hospital by John. John rushes Jasper on his gurney to his mom who is sitting atop a float on a parade. After his gurney flips over on the "one pothole in the town" his mother takes him to the hospital where John gives his blessings to his mother and tells his mother that Jasper is a very good person and molded him into what he is today.

The film ends at christmas time with Jasper telling John that he read his book. Says one good thing about it, then burns it. After his next book is released Jasper tells John that his mom is pregnant and the film closes with him saying "Just Joking".

Cast

• Billy Bob Thornton as Jasper Woodcock
• Seann William Scott as John Farley
• Susan Sarandon as Beverly Farley
• Ethan Suplee as Nedderman
• Amy Poehler as Maggie Hoffman
• Bill Macy as Mr. Woodcock's father
• Tyra Banks as Herself
• Kyley Baldridge as Young John Farley
• Alec George as Young Nedderman

Blooper

In the scene where John is going to be on the Tyra Banks show, you can see his cut being covered by makeup. Next camera cut it's back, next camera cut it appears, few camera cuts later, it's gone. When Maggie slaps him the cuts reappear and stay there for the rest of the movie.

Critical reception

As of September 15, 2007 on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 15% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 67 reviews. On Metacritic, the film had an average score of 42 out of 100, based on 23 reviews.

Blu-ray Disc & DVD Release

The Blu-ray Disc and DVD were released on January 15, 2008. The HD DVD version of the movie was scheduled to be released shortly after the Blu-ray version, but Warner Bros./New Line's decision to exclusively support Blu-ray has led to the cancellation of all New Line HD DVD titles (along with all Warner Bros. HD DVD titles after May 2008).

External links

• Official site
• Mr. Woodcock at IMDb
• Mr. Woodcock at AllMovie
• Mr. Woodcock at Rotten Tomatoes
• Mr. Woodcock at Metacritic
• Mr. Woodcock at Box Office Mojo