Photo: Aaron Epstein / Netflix
I watched HBO’s new film Bad Education last week. The whole thing felt a bit like a heist movie in reverse — it’s about a superintendent who’s stealing money from his school district, only you’re watching as the crime unravels, rather than as it plays out.
It’s a fun film, in large part thanks to Hugh Jackman and Allison Janney taking on some big characters. But the movie also takes the course a lot of true-story movies do, where they worry more about telling you what happened than they do about building characters.
I think this works to a point. It’s a wild story, and they do an entertaining job telling it. But I wish the film pushed a little further into who these people are. Showing the crime only as it’s unraveled is a cool way to…