Throw Billy Bob 'Bad Santa' Thornton and Jon 'Napoleon Dynamite' Heder together and you're bound to get something funny, right? 'School for Scoundrels' proves that this isn't necessarily the case. Tepid at best, this geeky comedy just doesn’t have enough balls.

Roger Waddell (Heder) is a loser — a Manhattan meter maid, who gets bullied into paying parking tickets and is rejected by three consecutive kids at the local Big Brother programme. He is in love with his Australian neighbour Amanda (Jacinda Barrett), but has a panic attack every time he tries to speak to her. A problem not helped by her sarcastic roommate (Sarah Silverman) who suspects he is a psychopathic stalker.

Having read every available self-help book and sick of being treated like a doormat, Roger takes his friend's advice and signs up for a class with the mysterious Dr. P. (Thornton). Dr. P. is the alpha male. Slick, aggressive and potty-mouthed, he spends the first class insulting the fragile wimps but promises to turn them into 'lions'.

With the help of his drill sergeant Lesher (Michael Clarke Duncan), he puts the timid men through their paces — lessons in instigating confrontation and every-man-for-himself loyalty are peppered with advice on how to get a woman into bed ("lie, lie and lie some more").

Surprisingly Roger is a quick learner and it is not long before he has plucked up the courage to ask the sickly sweet Amanda on a date. Unfortunately for him, Dr P. sees this as a good opportunity to assert his alpha-maleness and he too starts hitting on Amanda.

Before long the two are trying to out-man each other with dirty tricks and general skulduggery. Naturally Dr P. is more experienced but, predictably, our floppy-haired, limp-limbed hero comes out on top.

And therein lies the problem. What could have been a delightfully dark comedy is tempered by director Todd Phillips' ('Old School') caution, internal contradictions and Heder's superficial transformation. The geek acts like a scoundrel (but not really) in order to beat the scoundrel but is still secretly a geek. And they all live happily ever after.

The film is not without its funny moments however, and a great supporting cast — including the likes of Ben Stiller, Luis Guzman, Todd Louiso and Horatio Sanz — ensures that you are distracted enough not to notice the poorly disguised chauvinism inherent in the film's premise.