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Wesley Morris, Grantland: I didn't like anything about the movie before discovering what Guy is up to. I actively hated it after I figured out what was actually going on. Read more
Kyle Smith, New York Post: A young Jack Nicholson might have pulled this off, but Jason Bateman is not Jack Nicholson. Pity the actor who thinks he's edgier than he actually is. Read more
Rex Reed, New York Observer: For his directorial debut, Mr. Bateman acquits himself nicely, promising even better things to come. Read more
Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: It's over long before it's over, by the time you start wishing that a few of the dogs from "Best in Show" would show up; a one-note comedy, pounded with a hammer and left flat. Read more
Justin Chang, Variety: Jason Bateman makes an auspicious directing debut with this exuberantly foul-mouthed and mean-spirited comedy. Read more
A.A. Dowd, AV Club: Even when Bad Words is bad in the wrong way, it tends to be bad in the right way, too. Read more
Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: What makes the comedy work is that Bateman doesn't relent. Guy is, simply, a loathsome person. Read more
Peter Keough, Boston Globe: It's nasty enough, but it isn't so much funny as it is pathological. Read more
J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: Trashy, ribald laughs in the Bad Santa vein, this marks Bateman's directorial debut; it's not much to look at, but at least he has the nerve to push the insolence, profanity, and brutal insult humor to its absolute limits. Read more
Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: Directed by Bateman in his first solo effort and written by Andrew Dodge, the film is an irreverant jape with its fair share of standout comic performances. Read more
Tom Long, Detroit News: This is twisted, funny stuff. Read more
Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: Bateman deserves props for sustaining Bad Words as a little balancing act between sulfurously funny hatred and humanity. Read more
John DeFore, Hollywood Reporter: A scouringly funny tale of ill-conceived revenge. Read more
Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: Sarcastic, sanctimonious, salacious, sly, slight and surprisingly sweet, the black comedy of "Bad Words," starring and directed by Jason Bateman, is high-minded, foul-mouthed good nonsense. Read more
Rafer Guzman, Newsday: In his directorial debut, Bateman casts himself as a foul-mouthed, racist jerk. It's a stretch for the nice-guy actor, but the role doesn't suit him. Read more
Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: "Bad Words" serves, at least, as proof that Bateman can do a variety of parts, and direct a smart economical comedy - and if Hollywood is as smart and economical, it will give him the chance again. Read more
Ian Buckwalter, NPR: Bad Words announces its high concept immediately and then goes about the business of telling its story without wasting a moment. Read more
Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: For his directorial debut, Bateman returns to his bad-boy beginnings. And the results are predictably amusing. Read more
Manohla Dargis, New York Times: The performances are funny, appealing and, in the case of Allison Janney, as a spelling bee official, wonderful. Read more
Michael Sragow, Orange County Register: A movie that promises to skewer sentimentality about children and the parents who live their lives through them ends up as an arrested adolescent's cry for help. Bateman should have recognized that as a creative SOS. Read more
David Hiltbrand, Philadelphia Inquirer: Go see Bad Words for its breathtakingly wicked setup. Just be aware the spell wears off. Read more
James Berardinelli, ReelViews: The film's problem is that, despite obvious aspirations to be more than just a profane joke factory, it never fulfills its dramatic ambitions. Read more
Richard Roeper, Richard Roeper.com: Bateman's directorial debut is a brisk, brutally funny and pitch-black comedy. Read more
Christy Lemire, RogerEbert.com: Once we understand what's driving Guy, the revelation is airless: It feels like too little, too late. Now we're supposed to care about whether he has feelings? Read more
Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: In this profanely funny comedy of bad manners and hurts that won't heal, Bateman shows the same skill as a filmmaker that he does as an actor. And that's something to see. Read more
Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: At heart, Bad Words is a nice little concoction about a fellow walking around with a deep emotional wound, who heals it, not by confronting the source of his troubles, but by healing a similar wound in someone else. Read more
Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: While Bad Words is only sporadically funny, Bateman throws himself into the role without shame or ego. The film is also his directing debut, and a very capable one. Read more
Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Bateman is already a star pupil of comedy, and he could earn an honor's diploma in filmmaking if he learns to spell singularity. Read more
Robert Everett-Green, Globe and Mail: The laughs in this film are all mean-spirited or just frat-boy gross. Read more
Jocelyn Noveck, Associated Press: To the film's credit, this twist doesn't announce itself too soon, and so there's tension here -- not to mention hilarity. Read more
Peter Howell, Toronto Star: Almost unrelenting in its takedown both of an American institution and the country's obsession with victories big and small, Bad Words is more misanthropic fantasy than satiric fiction. Read more
Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out: It wobbles in plot developments involving the effortlessly starchy Allison Janney as the contest's "queen bee"; and it splats in the I'm-secretly-hurting conclusion. Read more
Claudia Puig, USA Today: It's tough to summon sufficiently negative language to describe the unfunny, desperate mess that is Bad Words. Read more
Stephanie Zacharek, Village Voice: Bateman seems to be looking over his shoulder to make sure we're getting the gags, but all he's come up with is a Bad Santa wannabe, with none of that movie's glorious Rabelaisian spirit. Read more
Bilge Ebiri, New York Magazine/Vulture: The film is at its best when it's hovering aimlessly without any apparent purpose in the world of this embittered, misanthropic little man. Read more
Stephanie Merry, Washington Post: Bateman, who's so often the put-upon straight man, really stretches himself here. His deadpan delivery works just as well in the role of a wicked antihero as it does when he plays Michael Bluth in "Arrested Development." Read more