Drillbit Taylor

Drillbit Taylor is a 2008 film starring Owen Wilson as a man hired by three high school students to protect them against the school bullies.

Notable as John Hughes' last screen work (he receives co-story credit under his "Edmond Dantes" pseudonym).

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Tropes used in Drillbit Taylor include:

• Adults Are Useless: Utterly.
• Barehanded Blade Block: Drillbit did this. He lost his pinky.
• Black and Grey Morality: The heroes are either essentially unaligned (three kids trying not to be bullied) or morally complex (a con artist who decides to do something good for once). The villain, however, is pretty unambiguously a bad guy.
• Especially Zoidberg:

Drillbit Taylor: You'd be surprised; anything can be turned into a weapon of mayhem or destruction.
Emmit: Even a puppy?
Drillbit Taylor: Especially a puppy.

• Hey, It's That Guy!: Josh Nichols is now beating people up himself
• Fake Ultimate Hero: Drillbit
• I Know Mortal Kombat: Wade and Ryan's method for learning to fight involves playing video games and watching Fight Club
• Kids Are Cruel: The teens who hired Drillbit are constantly menaced by two bullies, one of whom is completely psychopathic. Not only do they perform the normal bully tactics, but at one point the bullies chase the protagonists with a car, apparently in an attempt to murder them for trying to report their behavior. What makes this even worse is that most of this is done in plain sight of the rest of the kids in school and they do absolutely nothing about it, at least until the protagonists finally grow some backbone and kick some bully ass.
• Let Me At Him: The Holdback Technique.
• No, You Go First: Drillbit almost confesses the truth about himself to Lisa, but before he does, she starts going on about how she usually dates absolute losers, and is so happy to be with a nice doctor.
• Shout-Out: When the bully attacks Drillbit, he gets punched in the ear and complains about it, similar to Tyler Durden in Fight Club. The boys even watch that scene later in the movie, though the exact line isn't shown.
  • During the Terrible Interviewees Montage, one of the interviewees is Adam Baldwin, wearing the same field jacket he wore in My Bodyguard, dismissing the idea of a hired bodyguard as ridiculous.
• Sue Donym: While posing as a substitute teacher, Drillbit introduces himself as Dr. Illbit.
• Terrible Interviewees Montage: Played with, as most of the bodyguard interviewees are decent, but they all leave when they hear how low the pay is.
• Two Men, One Dress: An enforced version.
• Villain Ball: Filkins finally got caught only because he attempted to murder the protagonists with a samurai sword right in front of the police.