Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Crazy Awesome Teachers’ on Netflix, a Crazy Mediocre Comedy from Indonesia

Crazy Awesome Teachers (Guru-Guru Gokil) is another COVID casualty, originally slated for theatrical release in Indonesia before settling for an international streaming debut on Netflix. With this comedy, Indonesian model and actress Dian Sastrowardoyo added co-writer and producer credits to her resume; she also enjoys a notably anti-glam role in support of star Gading Marten, the Indonesian star who brings the broad appeal of his TV work to the movie.

CRAZY AWESOME TEACHERS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Taat Pribadi (Marten) is an odd duck, the son of a virtuous teacher who rebelled against the simplicity of his provincial upbringing, but flamed out in his somewhat pathetic attempts to be a career entertainer. He wants money; he wants a job on a cruise ship; he may be too dumb to realize the latter pursuit probably doesn’t lead to the former, but we’ll just ignore that plot hole for new. Taat is broke, and too old to be moving back in with his disapproving dad, but he moves back in with his disapproving dad. Insult meets injury when Taat finds no viable employment option besides being a substitute teacher at the local high school, which makes him his dad’s co-worker. Life is pain.

Taat fakes a diploma and fakes it in front of teenage history students, hoping to scrape together the cash he needs up front for the cruise-ship gig. Among his fellow teachers, he finds an easy friend in Manul (Boris Bokir), a slightly more difficult friend in by-the-book-er Rahayu (Faradina Mufti) and comic relief via Nirmala (Sastrowardoyo), whose pregnancy has rendered her absent-minded and constantly hungry. Taat’s attempts to be maybe romantically friendly with Rahayu don’t go over well, but they’re soon united by a cause when thugs working for a local gangster steal a tote bag full of cash that’s supposed to be the teachers’ salaries and Taat’s father’s retirement payout.

First, the teachers are crestfallen, but Taat promises to find a way to get the money back, which is foolish, but nobody ever accused him of not being a fool. So he, Manul, Rahayu and Nirmala stake out the gangster’s junkyard hideout and formulate a plan that’s so crazy it might just work. It takes them weeks, because there are montages and things happening, during which Taat might be winning over his students and starting to appreciate the teaching gig and learning a thing or three about himself and his dad. Will the bad guys have spent or distributed or at least done something with that cash in the meantime, like they probably would if this wasn’t a movie? Will Taat realize that he’s not just teaching things to kids, but the kids are teaching other things right back at him? Will they recover the dough these selfless teachers work so hard for? I shan’t spoil it.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Let it be known that Crazy Awesome Teachers is more School of Rock or Summer School (hello Mark Harmon) than Stand and Deliver or The Blackboard Jungle.

Performance Worth Watching: Mufti is the straight person every comedy anchored by a goof like Marten needs. The two actors’ by-turns breezy and prickly chemistry is the movie’s strongest and most naturalistic element.

Memorable Dialogue: Taat invokes the title pseudo-profoundly, possibly because he wants to kiss Rahayu: “You teachers are great. Awesome. You work so hard, selflessly, and dedicate your lives to students. Awesome.”

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: Crazy Awesome Teachers reverses the Stand and Deliver formula, with the teacher as the morally questionable one subject to a good straightening-out by his students. He’s also the outside-the-box thinker, the teacher whose ne’er-do-well tendencies drive him to not allow himself to be pushed over. Not that his character is particularly consistent — the plot drives him to do things to fulfill the desires of broad-comedy formulas, which demand that breakups always and forever must be followed by makeups, and that people of questionable moral character will find their inner straight arrow but allow the questionable things to foul things up so things don’t get all boring and plausible.

The movie is slightly broad and slightly offbeat but never really fully embraces a single approach. It’s also a grab-bag of bits and pieces of comedy and drama that seem to float in the spirit of its nebulous sketch of a lead character. In spite of this, it mostly works in the way it emphasizes the warmth of its core relationships — until it spectacularly fails to work in the third act, when the film devolves into moronic plot nonsense, slapstick and developments that are manufactured for the sake of redemption or condemnation or affirmation. The heart of a decent feelgood comedy exists here, but the screenplay lacks focus.

Our Call: SKIP IT. Crazy Awesome Teachers doesn’t flunk out, but its C average isn’t all that impressive either.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Stream Crazy Awesome Teachers on Netflix