187

I am an ex-school teacher and while the school I taught in was NOT as rough as the ones you see in the film, the movie does highlight the biggest problem I see in public schools today. The bad kids, essentially, run things and there's no accountability. As is often the case, teachers are never told about students' criminal records I had students who were convicted sex offenders and I was never informed of this and only found out later. A friend of mine taught a student who paralyzed a previous teacher by stabbing her...and the teachers were never notified! I understand about the right to privacy, but this is insane...especially since these kids pose a serious risk to others. I mention all this because I have my own biases about this film...your reaction might be different. When the story begins, Mr. Garfield (Samuel L. Jackson) is working as a substitute in New York City. One of his students has a record of stabbing folks...and because Garfield wasn't prepared AND the kid was not appropriate for this school, tragedy strikes. Garfield is stabbed many times from behind by this sociopath...and it's shocking he didn't die. And, there was no warning. Fifteen months have passed. While it's not surprising Garfield moved to another part of the country, he didn't pick well as now instead of the roughest and out of control New York City schools, he's now substitute teaching in one of the tougher inner city schools in Los Angeles. Now instead of a few budding criminals in his classes, the classes are filled with punk gang members who seem to have nothing to lose if they attack him or anyone else. So what's next? Well, it won't be good! See the film and find out for yourself. While I generally liked the film, the ending is ROUGH. I didn't love it though I did understand it....and I can only assume most won't love the ending as well. It's a real downer. Had the ending been a bit less awful, I am sure I could have scored this one an 8 or even 9.

A powerful story about urban violence and how it can affect inner city schools, this is an excellent little film. Samuel L. Jackson shines as the teacher fed up with his class who eventually begins exact his own kind of justice by bumping off the problem pupils. An atmosphere of simmering violence is built up along with a lot of suspense in a tale that had me hooked. The reliable Jackson puts in an excellent performance as the bitter teacher who has been driven to the edge. The rest of the cast do their jobs well, especially the actors playing the loathsome pupils. What I liked best about this film was the surprising ending, which sees Jackson and his adversaries playing Russian Roulette round a table. A superb ending to what is an interesting, sometimes difficult to watch but still important film. Forget the watered-down crap that most television stations show, this is raw, forceful viewing which asks questions. In fact it reminded me of some of those gritty '70s films, as it has the same hard edge.

Every now and then a movie is completely ignored or misunderstood by audiences AND critics alike. 187 contains some of the most dazzling, precise, ingenious, brilliant, inspired filmmaking in decades. Truly experimental in for, it re-elaborates an old premise with unexpected freshness, great sincerity and both earnestness and precision in its storytelling. I am only saddened to think that so many saw so little of it. Reynolds finally establishes in my book as the fulfilled promise of the man that shot THE BEAST.

OK, so this is not going to be Lean on Me with Morgan Freeman or even Dangerous Minds released just a year earlier. It's much darker and I have no problem with a film not following a conventional plot, in fact, I encourage it. But what should have ended as a halfway thought-provoking film fails miserably with a script and dialogue so paper thin you could shred it and horrible acting throughout from just about everyone except Samuel Jackson and John Heard. Also, for a drama film based on reality, there are some unbelievable circumstances throughout. For example, if a teacher was to appear in court as a material witness against a student who committed a crime, do you really think public school administrators would allow the student and teacher to stay at the same school, more less the same dang class?! And yet the principal of the school is always overly sensitive to the possibility that any student-teacher conflict could cause a lawsuit. Yet nobody thought to advise him on how bad of an idea that was? Someone tell me the logic in this. Anyway, the ending will leave you scratching your head while your jaw is still hanging throughout the long ending. You'll be thinking "What just happened?" Was there a lesson learned? Did this ending (or film) have a point; a story to tell? Yes, it does. The story is: There is a reason why this film has been forgotten while great films like Dangerous Minds and Lean on Me have not. Spare yourself the misery.

Samuel Jackson is a teacher who's subject to violence. He starts at a new school straight out of el barrio and the kids are not OK! Is Jackson gonna stay on the straight and narrow as a teach or go all Charles Bronson on em? This film latched on to the 'Dangerous Minds' wave, I suppose. Where 'Dangerous Minds' had some shred of intelligence, feeling and realism to it, this thing just comes off all lame. It tries to come at the subject in a provocative way, but ends in nothing but another morality tale. With violence sprinkled on top. There is a war going on between teachers and students as Jackson tries to bring order to a school full of gang members, killers and rapists. The insights provided here are on the level of lunch room rants from a teacher with a severe case of post traumatic stress disorder. In a socially disrupted neighborhood, of course you are going to have "bad schools". Its not about the students, or the teachers. Its about having your life destroyed by socioeconomic forces. Then you can talk about how people need to take responsibility for their own lives all you want. That is not the point. People will take responsibility for their lives if indeed they do have lives. Not if all that is left is a torn apart dead end existence. So to end "bad schools", you need to end bad society. Pitting teachers against students in this way, making their interaction the problem, is just dumb. The film also has got a hint of that at the end. But its not enough, and adding 'a teacher wrote this' to the credits really does not help much. Worst "The Teach Knows Best" film since James Belushis 'The Principal'.

Capturing just a glimpse of the threat and dangers of gangs in schools, 187 provides a chilling story of survival in public schools. Samuel Jackson portrays all the levels of emotions and we get behind his crusade to clean up the useless waste of human flesh. A jewel in this movie is the performance of Clifton Collins as Cesar Sanchez. He shows the depth of anger and (at the end) the desperate need for identity that only his gang can provide. The climax scene, although shocking, makes perfect sense. There is no alternative that wouldn't be a cop-out and it couldn't be portrayed any better.

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

The first hour of the movie was effective, the acting and direction were solid. Jackson was good, and the supporting cast was intense at times. The setup was mostly believable, unlike similar movies such as 'The Principal.' But as the story progressed the script lost all touch with reality with all characters behaving uncharacteristically. What might have been a good movie lost focus at the end by applying an homage to a classic movie in a situation that wasn't applicable.

Okay, I just finished watching One Eight Seven. A great film -- I went into it expecting a fluffy action flick, and got the wind knocked out of me. I read the remarks above and was struck by the notable lack of comments about one of the defining qualities of this film -- it is a modern, Hollywood treatment of an old, old story-- A story that was already ancient when it was packaged a couple millennia ago as the "New Testament." (Uh, I guess I should mention that some spoilers will follow, although I doubt that any significant details that folks won't see coming themselves will be given up.) This is the story of a Good Teacher who is moved by compassion to sacrifice his own life in order to demonstrate the folly and absurdity of man's inhumanity to man. This story has been told and retold again and again, with varying degrees of success. (The Green Mile is at one end of the spectrum, and Cool Hand Luke is at the other. "Which end is up" is, I suppose, a subjective thing.) What makes this a good movie is it's subtlety and ambiguity. Okay, it's not always -that- subtle. The introductions were a bit of a groaner-- ---------------------------- Childress: Roosevelt high? Isn't that where that teacher got stabbed to death? Garfield: Actually, he survived. Childress: No, there was this gang-banger, had a ten-penny nail, he stabbed him about a dozen times in a hallway, and.... (LONG PAUSE) ...you're him. Jesus Christ. You're him. It was you. ----------------------------- But at least his initials weren't J.C. Giving him the surname of an assassinated president is a little more elegant, although points come off for finding it necessary to reinforce the synchronicity of it by having him glance up at the list of "AMERICAN <dead> PRESIDENTS" when he realizes he's accidently walked into Childress's American History class. One thing's for sure, Samuel L. Jackson sure knows how to "Give to Cezar what is Cezar's." (Not a misspelling of Caesar -- Cezar is the name of a "Severely Emotionally Disturbed" student.) A great screenplay, brilliantly photographed, excellent sound design. The ambiguity of Garfield's moral character is interesting to me-- He is never *shown* to do anything wrong, (with the exception of yelling at someone in a road-rage incident,) but there are some *implications* of wrongful behaviour. (Don't wanna give anything away, so I'm treading carefully.) Even these *implied* actions are ambiguous-- Do the circumstances justify them? The writer clearly wants us to think about it. Hard.

Kevin Reynolds' 187, although billed as another "straight-laced-teacher-turns-troubled-urban-highschool-teens-into-well-rounded-individuals" movie, goes above and beyond this tired premise. The provocative story (which was apparently written by an actual highschool teacher) breathes new life into the otherwise stale highschool-drama subgenre. Samuel L. Jackson's performance as Trevor Garfield is fantastic, and his many emotional scenes and powerfully delivered lines of dialogue work well at allowing the audience to sympathize with the disenchanted Garfield and relate to his humdrum life. Also, the characters are much more dynamic and developed here than in most movies of this kind. The student as well as the faculty roles are all given unique personalities, backgrounds, and adequate motivation for their actions, which is a refreshing departure from the typical "the reason they're bad kids is because they grew up in the 'hood"-style characterizations. Although a few of the supporting performances are somewhat stilted (mainly because they are overshadowed by Jackson's excellence), the highly original story is clever enough keep anyone's interest piqued until the heartrending (although arguably contrived) ending. 187, aside from being smart, touching, and one-of-a-kind, really shows off Reynolds' ability to successfully convert a good, solid screenplay into a good, solid film. And since this movie was made directly after his abominable WATER WORLD, we should all by doubly impressed by his efforts!