I love getting to see real life crazy stories brought to life as they are more often way more insane than anything fictional. Hugh Jackman might forever be known as Wolverine, but I love that he continues to take such a diverse amount of roles. His latest was in the HBO film Bad Education co-starring Allison Janney and Ray Romano. Jackman was nominated for a couple of 2020 Emmy’s, but does it live up to the hype or will the numbers just not add up?

 

Bad Education follows the true story that rocked the town of Roslyn, NY in 2004 and garnered attention nationwide that centers on the stunning impact and aftermath of a multi-million dollar embezzlement scheme. The darkly comical film highlights the deficiencies of the public education system in the U.S. while examining the broader forces that foster greed, corruption and lack of accountability in our institutions.

 

It’s crazy how Jackman can fully embody a character like Wolverine and bring the rage, but then turn around performing in a musical or play a politician. It’s a sign of a truly talented actor and performer and this is yet another role where he shines. The everyman persona of a likeable guy with his own secrets and agendas. Both he and Janney are excellent here. They bounce off of each other to perfection and really bring the real life personas to life to make this story work so well.

 

Being a real life story you may already know the outcome, but it still delivers which makes for good filmmaking. There is an initial aspect to the film that kind of sucks you in to make you forget to where this film is actually going and in turn makes you pretty disappointed in this character you really like. That makes it all the more irritating to see what these people actually did and why the film works so great.

 

One of the things I continue to love with these HBO films is that they never feel like a TV movie, but instead like something that could have gotten a theatrical release. Sure I am sure some of them are produced for just that and get purchased layer, but it’s always refreshing to see such great production value on a TV film. This is way more common these days since TV is so great and this film is another shining example. In addition to the film this release offers up bonus content including featurettes taking you behind bringing this scandal to the small screen.

 

Grab your copy of Bad Education when it hits Blu-ray and DVD on September 8th from Warner Bros and HBO Home Entertainment.