Hamlet 2

Hamlet 2 (Andrew Fleming, 2008) - B

Kept me on my toes for 90 minutes with an off-kilter style I could never quite pin down. Obviously intended as a parody of the Inspirational Teacher Movie, about a wacky theater instructor who bands together a bunch of (mostly gangsta) misfits and saves drama by putting on a show. But as parody, it steers a constantly intriguing middle-ground: Coogan's Dana Marschz (the "z" is NOT silent) is manifestly insane, but only some people seem to know that (it's never quite clear if his wife, played by a hilariously out of it Catherine Keener, is one of them); the movie launches a direct attack on some of the genre cliches (e.g. the parents who pull their kid out of drama class because he lives in a rough world where drama is useless) but takes others seriously. Not a model of tonal consistency, to be sure, but a) it's very funny, and b) it's actually kind of challenging if you're engaging with the film. Elizabeth Shue: best self-effacing cameo since John Malkovich.