School for Scoundrels, the new Billy Bob Thornton comedy, certainly has an intriguing premise. Thornton plays Dr. P, an underhanded professor who guarantees results from a secret class he teaches to improve self-esteem -- or “to unleash your hidden lion,” as Dr. P would say. Thornton’s co-star is Jon Heder, who brought Napoleon Dynamite so delightfully to life on screen, as Roger, a shy and anxiety-ridden meter maid.

Roger gains confidence as result of the outrageous class and even gets up enough courage to ask out Amanda (Jacinda Barrett), a charming young woman from Australia he’s had a crush on for a long time. But when Dr. P. also starts making moves on the lovely Amanda and doing other unscrupulous things to ruin his life, Roger becomes determined to use the professor’s own methods against him.

School for Scoundrels reminds me a lot of Hitch, a much funnier movie from last year in which Will Smith tries to teach Kevin James how to get the woman he loves to pay attention to him. It’s also reminiscent of Anger Management, an AdamSandler/Jack Nicholson film -- even though the lessons Sandler learned had nothing to do with becoming a king of the jungle. 

No one plays a cad better than Billy Bob Thornton, and no one can portray a nerd quite like Jon Heder, so the casting is perfect here. Michael Clarke Duncan (from The Green Mile), as Dr. P’s huge, vicious assistant, also delivers a terrific performance -- as does Ben Stiller in the small role of a former terrorized student from Dr. P’s class.

However, the film comes across as too mean spirited for me, especially scenes of students initiating confrontations with others. I also couldn’t find anything amusing about Dr. P’s advice to his students “to lie, lie, lie and lie some more” in their relationships with women nor in his belief that “friends are nothing but obstacles to success.”

In addition, some scenes showing Roger supposedly succeeding when he unleashes his inner lion are less than convincing, and his surreptitious reading of index cards telling him what to do during his first date with Amanda appeared ridiculous and farfetched to me. Also, the film’s ending seems too contrived.

On the other hand, my husband chuckled through the entire movie. He obviously got a big kick out of School for Scoundrels, which probably means this is a comedy most guys will enjoy. Unfortunately, we're still arguing about it. 

(Released by MGM and rated “PG-13” for language, crude and sexual content and some violence.)