Review: "Hamlet 2" racks up gay-friendly laughs

Reviewing movies can offer a variety of challenges to a writer, ranging from the struggle to create historical or social context to the difficulty of finding the silver lining around 90 minutes of well-intentioned but oppressively grey cloud.

But I've never faced the particular challenge of having to write a PG-13 review about a movie with a musical number called "Raped in the Face" and lines like "those Bible-thumpers can suck a bag of d*cks."

Welcome to the deliriously profane and wonderfully hilarious world of Hamlet 2. Actually, welcome to Tucson, Arizona, a town where all the homes look like Chi-Chi's restaurants, the horizon is dotted with burnt-out shells of abandoned cars, and high school students dose their teachers with LSD.

The teacher in question is Dana Marschz (yeah, don't even try), an idealistic but utterly incapable high school drama teacher whose entire artistic output consists of staging hit Hollywood movies with his two-person-strong drama department. After their Erin Brockovich receives a particularly scathing review from the school's pint-sized drama critic, and the school threatens to pull funding for the department, Marschz decides to write an original production to prove to the school that they can create true art.

Steve Coogan and Katherine Keener

The problem, of course, is that Marschz (Steve Coogan) is a complete idiot. A failed actor who topped out at ads for herpes medication, and with a wife (Catherine Keener, at her acerbic, margarita-swilling best) at her wit's end who has had to take on a roommate (David Arquette) to make ends meet, Marschz is a fascinating disaster.

On the one hand he's a gonzo optimist who seems to think that he's the lead character in one of the terrible "inspirational teacher" movies that he so loves (when his class quadruples in size with Hispanic students who were forced into the program by budget cuts, he makes several ill-advised attempts to "inspire" them a la Dangerous Minds or Mr. Holland's Opus).

But on the other hand, he's a seething open wound, filled with blind rage at the punishment he's endured and the lack of respect he commands. At one point Marschz says that his life is "a parody of a tragedy", and that's pretty much it: his pain is our laugh-out-loud gain.

And painful it is. Thanks to the committed, unwinking performance of British comedian Coogan as Marschz, it's actually possible to laugh at the character and feel for him at the same time. And thanks to a script filled with drunken rollerskating fugues, head trauma, and public humiliation, there's plenty to feel for.

Steve Coogan as Dana Marschz