One Eight Seven *** (1997, Samuel L Jackson, John Heard, Kelly Rowan, Clifton Collins Jr, Tony Plana, Method Man) – Classic Movie Review 3001

Director Kevin Reynolds’s 1997 drama is a worrying end-of-term report on America’s schools and can be considered as the To Sir, with Love for the Nineties. That fine actor Samuel L Jackson rivets the attention as Trevor Garfield, a dedicated Brooklyn high-school science teacher who watches his school being transformed into a war zone in an educational system on the verge of collapse.

When he refuses to pass one of his pupils, the kid retaliates by stabbing him repeatedly in the back, leaving him close to death. A year or so later, scarred and shaken, he returns to teach in a predominantly Latino school Los Angeles school and finds himself back in the same world of unruly amorality and violence that he was trying to leave behind.

One Eight Seven presents an over-heated yarn, but as it’s written a teacher it must be true. Scott Yagemann, the writer-teacher, should perhaps have taken some script-writing lessons, though. Kevin Reynolds, the director of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Rapa Nui, Waterworld and Tristan + Isolde, delivers a depressing, but hard-hitting movie.

John Heard also scores as Dave Childress, a worrying fellow LA teacher into gun law as a response to violence. Also in the cast are Kelly Rowan, Clifton Collins Jr, Tony Plana and Method Man.

The title is the US penal code for murder.

Even with its relatively low cost of $20million, it was a box-office failure, taking only $5.7million in the US.

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© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 3001

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