Movies

The play's the thing in Hamlet and it is here, as well. It's just about the only thing that makes this intentionally cringe-inducing theatrical parody worth watching.

Sure, Steve Coogan has his hilarious moments as a delusional drama coach struggling to save the arts program at a Tucson, Ariz., high school, but that's all there is in the movie: moments. By now we know the British comic is capable of grabbing hold of a character and never letting go (see: Alan Partridge), so his commitment to playing the arrogant-but-pathetic former actor Dana Marschz is without question.

But the material director Andrew Fleming (Dick) and co-writer Pam Brady (Team America: World Police) give him is hit-and-miss, at best. A lot of it was probably funnier in the conceptual stage than in the actual execution. In between the individually funny parts, though, is a great morass of redundant, one-note slog, which we must endure while we wait for Dana's wild, wonderfully campy production, Hamlet 2.

It's a musical he hopes will revive not just the school's drama program but his life, both professionally and personally. To call him a has-been would be charitable; he's more like a never-was. This would, in theory, engender some sympathy for him, but Dana tends to be too obnoxiously self-possessed to deserve it — unlike Christopher Guest's sweetly vulnerable Corky St. Clair in the great Waiting for Guffman, who shares similar aspirations of greatness. Catherine Keener co-stars as his disdainful wife, with Amy Poehler playing the ACLU lawyer who fights to keep the totally inappropriate production — and its jaunty, 1950s-style ditty, "Rock Me Sexy Jesus" — from being shut down.