Horrible, fascist and poorly acted

Great Film overall

Better Late Then Never

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

While there is nothing contemptible about this film, it could have been so much better. The basic premise is the struggles in an old urban high school full out out of control kids and teachers who stopped caring. There is the obligatory clueless principal, the maverick teacher, the neurotic teacher, the boring lazy timeserving teacher, the troubled wise cracking kid who is so clever, a knocked up blonde etc etc.The plot is the school is being sued because one dummy who passed through the system is illiterate and wants to blame someone besides himself. There is an idealistic young pretty lawyer, Lisa Hammond, who is also an ex student, played by Jo Beth Williams. She goes back to get depositions, not to enrich her worthless client, but to change the system by exposing the problems of the school where blatantly unqualified students are passed through just to get rid of them.So she finds her old English teacher, the hip but jaded idealist, Alex Jurel, and serves him a summons by following him into the men's room. Nolte was Jurel and as always, did his part well. Then throw in Ralph Macchio as the troubled trouble maker but good kid Eddie Pilikian, while still looking like the Italian jd he always reminded me of. He has an even more messed up sidekick Danny, played by Crispin Glover, in a pre "River's Edge" dementia state.Okay the plot chugs along pretty well some comedy, some problems exposed, some capers, as the staff of the school, aided by the school's cynical lawyer, try to stonewall the case. Lisa tries to goad old idealistic Jurel into changing stuff while putting some moves on him. Blah blah blah. But the steady stream of soap opera cases, like the messed up Danny getting shot dead in the halls by the police and in about a minute he is already forgotten.In short, the movie tried but was only partly successful. For an 80s movie, it was good but not that good. Also, I wanted to hear at least one person say, "It was more that loser's fault that he never got an education than the schools."

I wish I could find this film cheaply at the 5 dollar or less bargain box DVD, because I would snatch it up as one of the funnest films of the 80's.I have seen this flick several times on tape and in fact, once showed this to a high school class I was subbing in. I think, judging from their blah reaction, the parody escaped them.This is a parody upon some of the worst stereotyped teachers in education. We know in the US once a teach you keep on until that golden retirement. I never believed an older, tenured and high paid teacher was as good as a new hire, young and enthusiastic.If you can find this flick on DVD for less than 12 dollars buy it. I'd say since it is dated, two to five dollars would be about right.

Like the movie trivia says...this movie was taped at Central High School in Columbus. And it(The school building)has since been remodeled and COSI now uses it.The Central HS building was owned by Columbus Public Schools. They allowed the movie crew(Whoever that may have been)to use the building.Not realizing what the movie was going to be about. Basically putting down the school systems. Saying that the school systems were passing kids that couldn't even read. Even though it was not based off of that school district.They were not happy when the movie came out depicting the school systems.

This is a movie that was well before its time. It is inspiring for novice teachers. It embodies wonderful archetypes for teachers...clearing giving fine examples of what good teaching looks like and what bad teaching looks like. We can all identify with the characters in this movie. We had teachers like each one of them. The character played by Richard Mulligan is particularly interesting and refreshing. Many of his methods, although viewed humorously in 1984, embody the qualities of outstanding teaching in the 21st century. Nolte's character also embodies sound pedagogic principles coupled with the frustrations. The issues in education are still very similar. The technologies have changed but the tenets remain the same. A study of the archetypal teachers in this movie would be a useful study in teacher training, education and professional development.