‘Drillbit’ bores into tired, put-upon-teen formula

It’s a time-honored tradition. Kids get picked on. Authority figures are of little or no help. The abused are forced to seek out a protector.

“Drillbit Taylor,” another entry from the tortured-teen universe of Judd Apatow (TV’s “Freaks and Geeks,” “Superbad”), follows a pair of high school freshmen as their hopes for adolescent reinvention hit a serious obstacle in the form of a psycho-in-the-making.

In attempting to update the bully genre for the 21st century, screenwriters Kristofer Brown and Seth Rogen (co-writer and co-star of “Superbad”), along with director Steven Brill, have exhumed the bones of such 1980s films as “My Bodyguard” and “Three O’Clock High” and laid on some modern embellishments resulting in an unremarkable patchwork comedy starring Owen Wilson.

On their first day at McKinley High -- a nod to where the “Freaks” matriculated -- Wade (Nate Hartley), a gentle, bespectacled beanpole, and Ryan (Troy Gentile), a portly skeptic, make tragically inauspicious debuts. If inadvertently wearing matching shirts isn’t enough to draw a target on the boys’ foreheads, Wade’s meek attempt at rescuing the pint-sized Emmit (“The Ring’s” David Dorfman) from hallway locker entombment draws the attention of the crazed Filkins (Alex Frost, who made his debut as one of the picked-on kids who turn to violence in Gus Van Sant’s Columbine- inspired drama, “Elephant”).

Hartley and Gentile are extremely likable, and better-than-average dialogue in the early going sets up some unfulfilled expectations of a better movie. Gentile, who has twice played a young Jack Black onscreen (“Nacho Libre,” “Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny”), has curly hair, generous proportions and robust charm similar to Rogen and actor Jonah Hill (“Knocked Up,” “Superbad”), which raises the question: Does Apatow (who produced the film with Susan Arnold and Donna Arkoff Roth) have a really strange greenhouse somewhere that he is growing these guys?

Emmit attaches himself to the duo as a wobbly third wheel and the daily beatdowns at the hands of Filkins and his equally sadistic buddy Ronnie (Josh Peck) lead the put-upon trio to seek professional protection. A want ad produces a montage of mercenaries (which includes a couple of amusing cameos) and provides them with the only bodyguard they can afford -- Drillbit Taylor (Wilson), an ex-soldier-turned-panhandler who lives in the bushes on a bluff overlooking the Pacific.

Drillbit dupes the boys with some improvised martial arts moves and pumps them up with some false confidence as he bilks them of cash and household valuables. As seems to be required of the genre, all the adults other than Drillbit are idiots, which makes his brand of disingenuous attention preferable to what Wade and Ryan are accustomed to and allows them to overlook his rather obvious shortcomings.

Some of the movie’s problems stem from the fact that the filmmakers can’t seem to decide whose story it is, with a constant narrative tug of war between Wade and Ryan’s battle for survival and Drillbit’s dreams of escaping to Canada. It takes too long to bring Wilson into the action and then there are long stretches where the two threads don’t intertwine as tightly as they should.

Drillbit’s extended, credibility-straining stint impersonating a teacher at the boys’ school and romancing one of their teachers (the underutilized Mrs. Apatow, Leslie Mann, in a throwaway role), is particularly tangential and plays like outtakes of the similar ruse in Mike White and Richard Linklater’s much funnier “School of Rock.”

Wilson is as sincere as ever at being insincere, though the sweet minor notes of his trademark melancholia seem here to be in search of a more boisterous presence -- say a Vince Vaughn -- to riff with. While Danny McBride is fine as Drillbit’s opportunistic, homeless colleague, the role is too underdeveloped to be of much value.

As characters, Wade and Ryan never progress beyond archetypes and are reduced to being purveyors of life lessons for Drillbit. Stuck paying homage to the movies that preceded it, “Drillbit Taylor” gradually caves in to a multitude of conventions capped by an entirely predictable climax.

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kevin.crust@latimes.com

“Drillbit Taylor.” MPAA rating: PG-13 for crude sexual references throughout, strong bullying, language, drug references and partial nudity. Running time: 1 hour, 42 minutes. In general release.