Samuel Jackson is a teacher who's subject to violence. He starts at a new school straight out of el barrio and the kids are not OK! Is Jackson gonna stay on the straight and narrow as a teach or go all Charles Bronson on em?
This film latched on to the 'Dangerous Minds' wave, I suppose. Where 'Dangerous Minds' had some shred of intelligence, feeling and realism to it, this thing just comes off all lame. It tries to come at the subject in a provocative way, but ends in nothing but another morality tale. With violence sprinkled on top. There is a war going on between teachers and students as Jackson tries to bring order to a school full of gang members, killers and rapists. The insights provided here are on the level of lunch room rants from a teacher with a severe case of post traumatic stress disorder.
In a socially disrupted neighborhood, of course you are going to have "bad schools". Its not about the students, or the teachers. Its about having your life destroyed by socioeconomic forces. Then you can talk about how people need to take responsibility for their own lives all you want. That is not the point. People will take responsibility for their lives if indeed they do have lives. Not if all that is left is a torn apart dead end existence. So to end "bad schools", you need to end bad society. Pitting teachers against students in this way, making their interaction the problem, is just dumb. The film also has got a hint of that at the end. But its not enough, and adding 'a teacher wrote this' to the credits really does not help much. Worst "The Teach Knows Best" film since James Belushis 'The Principal'.
This film latched on to the 'Dangerous Minds' wave, I suppose. Where 'Dangerous Minds' had some shred of intelligence, feeling and realism to it, this thing just comes off all lame. It tries to come at the subject in a provocative way, but ends in nothing but another morality tale. With violence sprinkled on top. There is a war going on between teachers and students as Jackson tries to bring order to a school full of gang members, killers and rapists. The insights provided here are on the level of lunch room rants from a teacher with a severe case of post traumatic stress disorder.
In a socially disrupted neighborhood, of course you are going to have "bad schools". Its not about the students, or the teachers. Its about having your life destroyed by socioeconomic forces. Then you can talk about how people need to take responsibility for their own lives all you want. That is not the point. People will take responsibility for their lives if indeed they do have lives. Not if all that is left is a torn apart dead end existence. So to end "bad schools", you need to end bad society. Pitting teachers against students in this way, making their interaction the problem, is just dumb. The film also has got a hint of that at the end. But its not enough, and adding 'a teacher wrote this' to the credits really does not help much. Worst "The Teach Knows Best" film since James Belushis 'The Principal'.