Waste of time

Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Best movie of this year hands down!

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

I watched this movie for the first time when it came out and loved it. Now, twenty years later, I still love it. It's fun, the music is good, and the teenage angst is well played. While there are a million movies with the message "the bad boy is a good boy," this one let's the bad boy be a bad boy. John Travolta's character is exactly what a cool teacher would be. We're all haunted by something, and he plays the part well. This is Jamie Walters doing what he does best: bad boy with a good heart. Both men are supposed to be "bad," but you find yourself rooting for them because yeah, they may have an attitude problem. And yeah, they may like rock 'n roll. But they're still the heroes.

You can try to watch and maybe sometimes you'll feel something like an interest and other emotions. However, 1991 is already too far behind us and movie plot is now too predictable and too lame. While you can enjoy looking at your "best actors" in their primes or youth, you can't ignore general shallowness of presented story, which repeats so many stories with happy or semi-happy end about adolescents going the wrong way. In this case delinquency panacea is rock'n'roll music - which will make you puke with laughter especially if your children are doing crack and porno for pocket money.Especially lame are scenes related to interracial interaction of young delinquents and afro-Americans. Considering lack of funds to spend and relatively unrestrained behaviour with opposite sex and race I can't image how in real life all them escaped with their lives and unspoiled mood.Maybe there is a place on Earth where it is possible but somehow it doesn't help the movie.It's a pity that Travolta had to endure these stupid texts and scenes, which seemingly had to symbolize unity and brotherhood of man. Nowadays they look so simplistic and devoid of reality that I got impression this flick was created by some people who don't know what they are really talking about or wanted to show. It's a well known fact that young criminals are sometimes more dangerous and spontaneous than grown up serial killers. But in this case we see a gang which is as fluffy and soft as band of guinea pigs and could be molded by anybody into anything.If it would be on soapy side more (like stupid comedy about teenager problems with kissing), probably it would be better. Attempt to mix in drama did not work out at all, but killed all the possibilities to make movie livelier.However, even in this state it is watchable snapshot of the tip of iceberg lacking other better examples. Some slight hints about racial troubles, negative role of church, victimization in correctional facilities, youth leadership issues can make this flick sufficiently instructive for really dumb parents and their kids. But it's impact is deteriorating with time too fast. As I said before, the story is too old and too sweet. Life has much more bitter taste for most.

Here's a chance to see some smooth moves out of John Travolta, dancing with the lovely Linda Fiorentino. There's a great soundtrack that's apparently impossible to find at less than sky-high prices. There's an impressive early performance by Glenn Quinn, who died too young, and a look at Heather Graham and Gwyneth Paltrow when they were still fresh-faced ingénues. The setting is a little bit "Last Picture Show" meets "Cider House Rules" and there's an interesting surface skim of race and class structure in the '50's. The story line could have been meatier, but having spent two hours today with "Ultraviolet," I was grateful enough for the linear progression.

I have to agree with Maltin on this one. It stunk like crazy. Travolta a music teacher in a all boys school was an admirable feat, but not really that well pulled off. The interplay between the boys school and the girls school was trite and too precious at times but we did have some really nice girls to look at (Graham, Paltrow) unfortunately they looked like they were ready to be housewives of the 50s rather than teenagers, sometimes frumpy and few moments where they actually looked like they were not haggard students. As well the boys looked like they were living in a shanty town in comparison to the girls The finer points of the film were seeing Richard Jordan, an actor that I think was underrated in our time, unfortunately his role of strict school master almost mirrored his role of strict orphan director from another bomb he was in "Solarbabies", only slightly less sadistic. However if you choose to rent or (If your really lucky) catch this on cable listen carefully to the DJ on their radio, you just might recognize him, yet another underrated actor that was at least was fortunate to be heard and not seen in this movie.