Undescribable Perfection

Better Late Then Never

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Not only by the fact that this was a great movie but also by the fact that I somehow never heard of it for almost 20 years! I consider myself a movie collector and I love sam L Jackson and love gang related movies. (Blood in blood out, boysndahood...) When I saw this movie at the video club I bought it for eight bucks without even knowing what it was. What a surprise. My first impression was that the cinematography was beautiful and the acting was great. Then after a while I felt like it was a bit more concentrated on the teacher side of the story and not enough on the students whom were made to look like evil people who are bad 24 seven.Spoilers: Then the whole finger cutting scene and the Dead body found in the river scene came and I was like:' WoW!' For a bit there I thought that the white teacher would turn out to be the killer and I was like 'oh no don't bring me that twist, that's going to be disappointing' And they didn't! Superb movie! 8/10

After a vicious assault on him, Trevor Garfield, a teacher, moves cities and works as a temp. However, he finds that things are even worse at his new school. Dealing with an important subject, this is immensely engaging and tense. While not based on any specific case, this was written by an actual teacher, and, frankly, it does feel terrifyingly authentic and realistic. The psychology is completely accurate, and this is not black and white. This is well-paced, and never boring. The plot is compelling throughout, and though you can figure some things out before they occur, this most likely *will* surprise you. Every acting performance is spot-on, and all roles are marvelously cast. Jackson is impeccable, and his particular knack for playing someone who holds anger and may lose control at any moment is excellent for this. This has a great soundtrack, with music that fits the environment(which is very nicely established; they found perfect locations and types of people), without making it appealing. The editing and cinematography are incredible, if dangerously close to being flashy. There is a bit of brutal, bloody violence, a lot of disturbing content, moderately frequent strong language and brief nudity in this. I recommend this to anyone mature enough to handle it. 7/10

I have spent the last year working to get my teaching certificate. Watching this movie makes me wonder if I really want to keep going.Teaching in the inner city is a dangerous profession. Yes, I imagine there are a lot of teachers like Dave (John Heard) who are just in it for the money.I can understand why someone like Trevor (Samuel L. Jackson) can give up on the dream.Watching this film will cause you to question just what the limits are and whether you can deal with them. It was a strong performance by Jackson.

There has been quite a number of movies made on this particular subject, some like the Sidney Poitier one, are classics, some like the one with James Belushi is just plain repetitive and there are some that are mocking the above, like the one with Jon Lovitz, for example. I thought I had seen them all, but this one, I believe in the just purpose of making a point that there is an ever growing part of the "civilized" world that society has completely lost grip of, manages to almost transcend the genre. Almost because after a gritty opening this one completely loses it's voice in the roaring noise they call score, which is inappropriate, and cheap stylistic bravado like the slow-mo. The accentuation of ever growing anxiety and build-up of retaliative power of the main character, however, plus the gratification of, admittedly this viewer's, too, desire to see some sort of retribution, on the other hand, proves it made its point.