Today is my brother’s and cousin’s graduation day, so in honor of that I will be reviewing Bad Education, HBO’s new film that looks at the largest embezzlement from a school scandal in the US. HBO has a reputation of putting out incredible original programming so it shouldn’t be a shocker that they have put out another hit.

Bad Education stars Hugh Jackman as the superintendent Frank Tassone and Allison Janney as the assistant superintendent Pam Gluckin. THe film follows the story from 2002 where the school board and Tassone discover that Gluckin had embezzled at least $250,000 dollars from the school district. In order to ensure funding for a new construction project and to hide his own spending, Tassone convinces the school board to cover up it up until a student Rebekah Rombom, in the film named Rachel Bhargava and played by Geraldine Viswanathan, discovers odd or missing payments while researching for an article in the school paper.

The performances in this movie are fantastic. Jackman and Janney are always great, no matter what they are in, but their talents are on full display in this film. Ray Romano has a supporting role as the head of the school board, and he is also really good in this film. Some of the greatest scenes are with Jackman, of course, near the end of the film where you can tell he is on the verge of completely unraveling. The way this film and Jackman portrays Tassone’s descent is so well executed. One minute you think you know how everything is shaking up, and the next a new screw is introduced to the plot that flips everything on its head.

Overall, Bad Education is the best film to come out exclusively on streaming this year. The entire cast’s performances were outstanding and fun to watch, and the way the plot was delivered to the audience was so masterfully done. Bad Education is on streaming services that offer a HBO extension (I watched it with the 7-day HBO trial on Amazon Prime) or you can wait to watch it for when the new HBOmax streaming service launches on May 27.

8/10

Bad Education is rate TV-MA for language.