[1] The film centers around Waël, a con man whose life is changed when he is forced to work as a mentor for a group of teenagers who face expulsion from school.

[2] Waël (Kheiron) is a petty criminal who lives with his foster mother Monique (Catherine Deneuve) in a Paris suburb.

Over the following week, Waël gains their confidence, sometimes by exaggerating his own abilities, or pretending that he has invented important things or coined well-known sayings.

Waël survives and, in the final scene of the film, the students give him a book of quotations, showing they knew all along he had been pretending to be more than he was.

Fabrice Leclerc who reviewed the movie for Paris Match praised Kheiron's acting skills,[3] while Christophe Carrière in L'Express called him "n'est pas seulement drôle [...] aussi pertinent" ("not only funny but also relevant").

[2] Eddie Strait in the Daily Dot, while admitting that the script contained many clichés, thought that the actors made up for it and argued that "...Bad Seeds hits the mark often enough to warrant watching.