Quartile rating: 7/10 · 1 rating
A superintendent of a school district works for the betterment of the student’s education when an embezzlement scheme is discovered, threatening to destroy everything.
Bad Education is elevated primarily by Hugh Jackman's career-best performance as Frank Tassone, a charismatic and deeply duplicitous superintendent whose carefully constructed persona unravels with mounting tension. Allison Janney is equally sharp in support. The plot, drawn from a real Long Island embezzlement scandal, is compelling precisely because of its mundane audacity — the scale of the theft and the complicity of a community invested in its own illusions make for rich dramatic material. Cinematography is competent and functional but unremarkable, fitting the suburban milieu without particular visual distinction. Novelty is modest — the institutional corruption genre is well-trodden, and while the specific story is fascinating, the film's approach is fairly conventional prestige television in execution. The ending is satisfying in its matter-of-fact aftermath, though it doesn't land with the full dramatic weight the buildup promises.