I didn't like anything about the movie before discovering what Guy is up to. I actively hated it after I figured out what was actually going on.

| Apr 3, 2014

The laughs in this film are all mean-spirited or just frat-boy gross.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Mar 28, 2014

Almost unrelenting in its takedown both of an American institution and the country's obsession with victories big and small, Bad Words is more misanthropic fantasy than satiric fiction.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Mar 27, 2014

Trashy, ribald laughs in the Bad Santa vein, this marks Bateman's directorial debut; it's not much to look at, but at least he has the nerve to push the insolence, profanity, and brutal insult humor to its absolute limits.

| Mar 27, 2014

In his directorial debut, Bateman casts himself as a foul-mouthed, racist jerk. It's a stretch for the nice-guy actor, but the role doesn't suit him.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Mar 23, 2014

This is twisted, funny stuff.

| Original Score: B+ | Mar 21, 2014

Go see Bad Words for its breathtakingly wicked setup. Just be aware the spell wears off.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Mar 21, 2014

At heart, Bad Words is a nice little concoction about a fellow walking around with a deep emotional wound, who heals it, not by confronting the source of his troubles, but by healing a similar wound in someone else.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 20, 2014

It's nasty enough, but it isn't so much funny as it is pathological.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Mar 20, 2014

In Bad Words, Jason Bateman demonstrates that he is in full control of his onscreen identity: playing characters who express themselves with humorous timing and sardonic wit.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 20, 2014

Bateman, who's so often the put-upon straight man, really stretches himself here. His deadpan delivery works just as well in the role of a wicked antihero as it does when he plays Michael Bluth in "Arrested Development."

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Mar 20, 2014

Bateman is already a star pupil of comedy, and he could earn an honor's diploma in filmmaking if he learns to spell singularity.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 20, 2014

What makes the comedy work is that Bateman doesn't relent. Guy is, simply, a loathsome person.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Mar 20, 2014

It's over long before it's over, by the time you start wishing that a few of the dogs from "Best in Show" would show up; a one-note comedy, pounded with a hammer and left flat.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Mar 20, 2014

Directed by Bateman in his first solo effort and written by Andrew Dodge, the film is an irreverant jape with its fair share of standout comic performances.

| Original Score: B+ | Mar 14, 2014

[Jason Bateman's] an automaton, a joke machine-and as long as he stays that way, Bad Words offers shock for shock's sake.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Mar 14, 2014

Once we understand what's driving Guy, the revelation is airless: It feels like too little, too late. Now we're supposed to care about whether he has feelings?

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Mar 14, 2014

The film is at its best when it's hovering aimlessly without any apparent purpose in the world of this embittered, misanthropic little man.

| Mar 14, 2014

The performances are funny, appealing and, in the case of Allison Janney, as a spelling bee official, wonderful.

| Mar 13, 2014

Sarcastic, sanctimonious, salacious, sly, slight and surprisingly sweet, the black comedy of "Bad Words," starring and directed by Jason Bateman, is high-minded, foul-mouthed good nonsense.

| Mar 13, 2014