"You get what you pay for" — the tagline for 'Drillbit Taylor' doesn't always ring true. Sure, when three bullied 13-year-old geeks pool their pocket money to hire a bodyguard, all they can afford is a homeless guy. He isn't the greatest.

Neither is the film itself — even though, in this case, money clearly wasn't an object. Based on an original story by John 'Ferris Buehler's Day Off' Hughes, the king of '80s comedy, it's produced by Judd 'Knocked Up' Apatow, the king of '00s comedy. Co-written by Seth Rogen, whose 'Superbad' screenplay perfectly captured the world of teen dorks, it stars professional lovable laidback loser Owen Wilson as a loveable laidback loser.

But, beyond an impressive pedigree that can't have come cheap, there isn't much going on here. The homeless guy, Drillbit Taylor (Wilson), initially convinces his employees — the fat kid, the skinny kid and the little kid — that he's a mercenary and martial arts expert. They don't realise he just wants to work his way into their lives, steal their parents' stuff, and head off to Canada with the money.

When the bum's useless advice, likely learned from watching 'The Karate Kid', still gets the trio of misfits beaten up by the school bullies, Taylor must escalate his plan — by posing as a substitute teacher. Wilson gets the chance to spout the same hippie wisdom he did in 'You, Me and Dupree', and hook up with a hot blonde from the staffroom, while his young friends continue to be humiliated in the corridors.

Yet all of it — even those scenes of humiliation, clearly intended to dim the romcom mood — feels tired, cumbersome. With Rogen's script lacking the charm, insight and spunk of his previous writing credits, Wilson one blink away from a coma, and the kids seemingly auditioning for one of those '80s school sitcoms, Apatow's latest simply doesn't have the balls (or laughs). It's more 'Saved By The Bell' than 'The 40-Year-Old Virgin' or 'Forgetting Sarah Marshall'.

You clearly don’t always get what you pay for.