Despite sharing a producer in comedy-genius-of-the-moment Judd Apatow, a co-writer in Seth Rogen and somewhat similar territory, "Drillbit Taylor" doesn't measure up to the raunchy classic that gave the world "McLovin" (and for which the world should be forever thankful).

While it does provide fodder for some laughs and has a hint of similar underlying sweetness, "Drillbit Taylor" simply doesn't have the same magic. There's just something weird about a movie in which the payoff has an adult beating up a kid (no matter how much the kid deserves it).

Owen Wilson plays a homeless Army deserter — the title character — who tricks three kids into hiring him as a bodyguard, mostly to steal their rich parents' belongings so he can sell them and move to Canada (they pay you to take the land, he's convinced).

Part of his running spiel is that he was trained in special ops, excels in hand-to-hand combat and so on. Luckily for Drillbit, the kids are desperate. Wade (Nate Hartley) gets himself and his friend Ryan (Troy Gentile) into serious trouble by, naturally, doing the right thing: Wade tries to stop a psychopathic bully named Filkins (Alex Frost) from stuffing junior-sized Emmit (David Dorfman) into a locker on their first day of high school.

Things go downhill fast from there. Of course, Drillbit isn't much of a security guard. He takes more of a Zen-like approach — he's there when he's not there, especially when he's not there, that kind of thing — that has predictable results. So to be closer to the boys he cons his way into the school posing as a substitute teacher, where he attracts the attention, and everything else, of a real teacher (Leslie Mann, Apatow's wife).

Wilson is fine as Drillbit. He has a laid-back charm that helps explain his rather laissez-faire attitude toward protecting the kids. But Hartley, Gentile and Dorfman are outstanding as Filkins' hapless victims. Hartley and Gentile are basically younger versions of the roles Michael Cera and Jonah Hill played in "Superbad." A scene in which they try to learn how to take a punch, pummeling each other in the process, is hilarious as slapstick.

Wonder what it would feel like to get punched in the center of your forehead? Bam! Yet their naivete and innocence in working it all out is charming.

For all the nice touches — the boys stop while running for their lives to take cell-phone pictures of bikini-clad women lying out in the sun, a scene that screams Apatow and Rogen — there are just as many false starts. For instance, Frost is left to play Filkins as nothing more than a nut case, with little explanation of why he behaves the way he does.

Wilson's role is underwritten, as well, though there is a little explanation about his life (and nickname) toward the end of the film. Despite the title and premise, it's almost as if the one thing "Drillbit Taylor" doesn't need is Drillbit. You get the idea that, while it would take some time, some ice and a lot of bandages, Wade, Ryan and Emmit would have worked things out eventually without him, and the movie would have been funnier for it.