Rating: PG13
Genre:
Comedy
Theatrical Release: 10/03/2003(USA)
Release Date: 12/09/2008
Flags: Adult Situations, Adult Language, Watch With Your Kids, Suitable for Teens
Distributor/Studio: Paramount
The world's least-employable
heavy metal guitarist is entrusted with the minds of upstate New York's best and brightest in this fish-out-of-water
comedy.
Jack Black plays
Dewey Finn, axe-bearer for a fitfully successful bar band determined to win a regional battle-of-the-bands competition. There's only one thing standing in their way: the self-indulgent solos and crowd-diving antics of their "embarrassing" lead guitarist. When his band votes him out in favor of a would-be rock god,
Dewey has to make the rent somehow, and after intercepting a call for his substitute-teacher roomie
Ned (
Mike White), the pot-bellied slacker finds himself in front of a class of elite elementary school students. At a loss for a lesson plan,
Dewey takes offense at the pre-teen prodigies' staid musical regimen and makes it his goal to preach them the gospel of
The Who,
Led Zeppelin, and
AC/DC -- with the ulterior motive of getting them to compete against his former band for a cash prize. But no matter how willing his pupils,
Dewey runs up against the consternation of the school's stern headmistress
Principal Mullins (
Joan Cusack), the battle-of-the-bands' promoter (
Frank Whaley), and not least, his identity-deprived roomie
Ned.
~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide