Filmsane

Well, I saw Bad Education last night. And although the trailer led me to believe that it’s more comedy than drama, it’s, in fact, the exact opposite. Sure it has some comedic lines and scenes but in 98% of the movie Bad Education is full-on drama. Don’t be fooled by the trailer. Or the presence of Ray Romano in the movie.

Not that I mind actually. Not at all. However, it does contain the greatest possible performance from Hugh Jackman ever recorded on film. I’m not joking. If you think that he was good in Logan. Well, wait until you see him in Bad Education.

But what is Bad Education? Well, it’s a biopic to be exact. It depicts the embezzlement scandal in New York’s Roslyn school district. Back in the early 2000s the school’s superintendent and his deputy embezzled millions of public fund money. What was supposed to be used in the school’s maintenance, upkeep and renovation were stolen primarily by Frank Tassone (Hugh Jackman) and Pam Gluckin (Allison Janney).

And how they were discovered? Because of the great investigative journalism work is done by a high school junior. That’s right. What started as a puff piece transitioned into a great piece of greed and theft.

But what’s more intriguing is that the movie is more a study of characters. And on how those characters get corrupted over time. Add money, time, and mutual cover-up and it’s a perfect recipe for disaster. Not to mention that each of them portrayed a very public persona of prime and proper outstanding citizen to the local community. They were crisp, polished and concerned on paper but deeply greedy, insecure and manipulative in real life.

The fact that the screenwriter of the movie Mike Makowsky was a student at the very same high school and saw things first-hand doesn’t hurt either. But over here, several things fascinated me. First how greed grows and secondly how easy it is to manipulate the system. They’ve been doing that for so long, so their shenanigans became too obvious to ignore. That’s why they were caught eventually.

If they were moderate they could have gotten away with their dirty deeds. But the thing is…. They couldn’t have. And that’s the whole point of this movie. Once they start, they couldn’t back down. Hey, Tassone even nurtured as a secret lover that his partner of 33 years didn’t know anything about. Secrecy is a big deal here in this movie, and it remains a big deal right until the very end.

I highly encourage you to watch Bad Education. If anything, because of the outstanding Hugh Jackman and Allison Janney’s performances. Secondly, because it’s insanely good. I think you’ll love it as much as I did.

Bad Education is currently streaming on HBO.