Star rating:
Dir: Steve Brill
With: Owen Wilson, Nate Hartley, Troy Gentile

Frat pack comedian Owen Wilson joins Judd Apaptow's gang for this geeks' comedy produced by the director of Knocked Up and co-written by one of its stars, Seth Rogen. One might have hoped that the combination of Wilson's patented screen persona - the dude suffering arrested development - and Apaptow and Rogen's recurring theme of nerds inheriting the earth would result in a funnier, sharper film than this. Drillbit Taylor - the name of Wilson's down-and-out hero, who passes himself off as a professional bodyguard for three geeks being mercilessly bullied in their first year of high-school - is low on laughs, if not on charm. It actually plays like a prequel to another Apaptow/Rogen collaboration, the horny high-school geeks comedy Superbad, but by now the fat-thin-speccy kids having their day schtick is wearing a bit thin. Still, Wilson's cod-Zen antics remain as watchable as ever.