CNN - Review: "187" has lots of students, little class

From Reviewer Paul Tatara

(CNN) -- Let's talk for a minute about movies that "look cool." These are not to be confused with movies displaying a sharp visual style that's rooted in the content of the story, or movies that are just unobtrusively well-shot. "The Godfather" is a brilliant, gorgeously photographed film. "Top Gun," on the other hand, "looks cool." It's the difference between an Irving Penn photo and a Michelob commercial.

Kevin Reynolds' "187" looks like a Michelob commercial, or a music video, or a Levi's 501 blue jeans ad. And that's just the first of its many problems. The story, about a victimized high school science teacher (well played by Samuel L. Jackson) fighting the good fight against some vicious L.A. gang members who also happen to be his students, is a big heapin' helpin' of re-heated hokum, but that comes later. For the first 40 minutes or so, the ridiculously self-conscious look of the movie was enough of a distraction to keep me from getting involved in the been-there/done-that storyline.

Reynolds and his near-tasteless cinematographer, Ericson Core, do everything in their power to insert a little visual/musical interlude into each transitional moment in the screenplay. White light glows on high-burn, school hallways are icy blue (for no good reason), and, most annoying of all, the edges of the frame are blurred so that only portions of what was shot are actually recognizable as concrete images. The reason for doing this is, of course, that it "looks cool." I'd like to suggest that every filmmaker out there (Reynolds is not the only guilty party, not by a long shot) just calm the hell down and photograph the screenplay. If you want to get aggressively tacky, stay at home and make macram owls. This is the 70th movie I've seen this year, and I don't think I can stand it anymore!

That felt good. As for that screenplay. There's a lot of healthy moralizing that goes on here (by writer Scott Yageman), and I know that our inner-city schools are in dire, often violent shape, but has anybody noticed that this thing is "To Sir With Love," except that Sidney Poitier takes a shiv in the back, and Lulu pulls a train out by the basketball courts during lunch break?

At the beginning of the story, Jackson is teaching in New York City, so you just know there's gonna be trouble. This is where a soon-to-be-failed student sneaks up on him in the hall and stabs him 20 or 30 times with a nail. This puts lotsa holes in Jackson's back, although he doesn't develop lockjaw, so I suppose the nail wasn't rusty. Then we jump ahead 15 months, where the psychologically convalescing Jackson takes over a science class full of ... (imposing music) ... THE BAD STUDENTS.

Does any of this sound familiar? My God, "Dangerous Minds" just came out two years ago. What about "Blackboard Jungle," or "Up the Down Staircase?" Or "Room 222," for that matter. The fact that everybody's got a gutter mouth and likes to whip out zip guns at the drop of a hat doesn't make the basic heart of the story any more original. All the students think the courageous Mr. Jackson is a sucka, of course, so they make rude noises when he talks and won't take off their sunglasses. The only unique thing in the script is that he doesn't manage to win them over. He does, however, manage to shoot the main Bad Student (Clifton Gonzalez Gonzalez) full of a sleep-inducing drug (using an arrow, no less), and then cut off his trigger finger with a knife.

You didn't misread that. After about 70 minutes, the story suddenly verges off of whatever course it thought it was on and turns into a revenge fantasy that would make Charles Bronson blush. Bodies (and body parts) start turning up all over the place. This pretty much squashed my hopes that a now-mature Lulu would stand up in class and sing a mushy ode to everybody's most favorite-ist teacher. I was truly dumbfounded by this turn of events. Supposedly, we're watching a man who's been pushed over the brink, but his sudden conversion to savagery is not even remotely convincing. It doesn't help that one of the things that finally makes him crack is the hanging of a friend's golden retriever. I guess it wouldn't have been as exciting if Jackson started running through the housing projects in East L.A. sedating and strangling pit bulls.

At the end of the movie, a little blurb appears on the screen detailing just how many teachers in the U.S. have reported being attacked by their students. It's a shameful thing, and there's nothing funny about it. However, this information is followed by another blurb that reads, "A teacher wrote this movie." Yeah, well, a former student wrote this review, and I give the teacher a C minus.

That felt good, too.

"187" is menacing and sporadically quite violent. There are a couple moments of nudity involving a troubled female student. Tons of bad language, graffiti spraying, and other gang-related selfishness. Rated R. 117 minutes.

Related site:

• Warner Bros. - 187 (official movie site)

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