The Lesson

I was really looking forward to this tale of revenge and learning as the premise sounded entertaining. A teacher, Mr Gale (Hands), who is ridiculed daily by his students, decides to take matters into his own hands and to elevate their learning curves by some extreme teaching methods. You do get what you expect; there are some nasty scenes of violence and abuse. The scene where Mr Gale nails the hand of his student, Fin (Bendall), to the desk looks realistic. It's the realism which could have made this movie something special. I've known families like Fin's and his brother's, Jake (Cox), where the brothers don't get on... to the point of arguing, fighting, and forsaking. I've also known the senseless bullies of Fin and Joel's (Coltart) order. Though I do hope that the scene in the schoolroom isn't that realistic - if it is, I pity the teachers and can understand the twenty-six-grand to study to teach the government are offering. The trouble starts when you get to the tortuous indoctrination. Through all of the bleakness, we are then subjected to a gayfull and lunatic lesson. This departs from reality and enters the demented. Which, in itself wouldn't be a bad thing had Mr Gale been suffering from a mental break. However, this doesn't appear to be the case. Then when you throw in Fin's delusion it was enough to wrench me away from the film, thinking, what the hell(?). From here the story and character of Mr Gale become preposterous and unbelievable. I felt that both the writer and the director, Ruth Platt, were trying too hard to get their point across, making the story appear pompous and pretentious. It's from here on in that the film falls apart. The really ludicrous thing is the scene where Jake's Girlfriend, Tanja (Gavanski), is accosted and forced to join in the lesson. She's worried that Fin's not come home, though his brother doesn't give a damn, so she sets out to find him. She wanders the town aimlessly and just by coincidence comes across Mr Gale. This is absurd because the abduction takes place outside. How did Mr Gale know she was there, let alone that she had an interest in one of his captives. Then there's the timeline which is totally cockeyed by the end of the film. So what started out as an okay film drops into a quagmire of below average revenge torture fodder. If you like your revenge stories and can empathise with teachers then this may be worth a watch, though it could have been much better and even could have made a statement. Though I would say you'd be better off with the Hostel or Saw franchises.

Have read a lot about this film and it's independent, creative,thoughtful persona. Has a docudrama / realist heart , getting down there to the "real"people on the council estates with all these problems (mostly via male emotional betrayal and bullying) that lead to classic alienation from education, culture, love, and playing a positive role in a society (in this film unmentioned in terms of poverty, economic exploitation and inequality). Thus, the effect on the cultured, educated English teacher of these ill cultured crude schoolboys who disrupt and abuse him in his classes is for him to become a vicious, psychotic kidnapper and murderer. And thus rescuing the working class laddo and lassie from their grimness, lifting them into a chocolate box cottage life of Oxbridge culture. Arty rubbish is how I felt watching this mish mash of styles and ideas. This film reminded me of the gymnasium scene from Andersons' "If" where the rebel Mick is beaten into submission and then has to shake the hand of his establishment bully.

If Ken Loach had ever produced a horror film, it would have looked very much like 'The Lesson'. This is a hugely thought provoking film whose portrayal of horror goes so much further and deeper than the scenes of violence. The film is firmly grounded in the real world, our world, with real people dealing with real issues. For the hard core chain saw massacre viewer, the film may take a while to get to the 'horror' scenes - but for me, the horror started from the moment the film began as we witness the appalling way people treat each other and how horrifically society fails them. Ultimately it is hard to say who is the monster and who the victim- in fact the most stomach churning scenes for me involved the domestic violence. Having said that Robert Hands is outstanding as the teacher. His mercurial performance is totally empathetic and mesmeric - at one moment terrifying , the next pathetic. Sign of a great film for me is that it makes you think as you watch it, it makes you think as you discuss it afterwards and it is still making you think days later. This film does that with knobs on.

When the students frustrate the teacher too much, what will the teacher do? Perhaps those students need a lesson - a real lesson that they will never forget in their lifetime. The teacher makes sure that the students pay full attention this time, no matter what it takes. He has all the tools for the job - nails, hammers, pliers, knives, duct tape and a brand new nail gun. And so follows a night of horror, torture and screams. But he will not stop until they learn the lesson by heart. If you have loved Panic Room (2002), Shuttle (2009) and Saw (2004), then you will enjoy this movie too.

OK, for the record I HATE giving bad reviews, I appreciate the fact that real life people have put their all into a film and I feel very cruel when I can find nothing decent to say about it..... however this is possibly one of the worst movies I have ever sat through and I would like to help someone, somewhere from wasting their time watching it too. It's the kind of movie that if you happened to be one of the cast you wouldn't even tell your mates, you wouldn't want anyone to know you were in it! The start is so slow! It follows two "naughty" lads around for an age that I almost forgot we were watching a movie about a physio teacher plotting revenge! The acting from the bad boys was absolutely tragic! The second they started speaking I knew it wasn't going to be a great movie, but as the boys were already ticking me off at that point I persevered watching as I wanted to see them reach a grizzly end! Lol. Getting to that was painful though... why is it these bad movies are always filled with bad sexual humour?! Shouting "skank... have you been to a STD clinic recently" is something a bottom feeder would think up to put into a film! Clearly whoever thought up lines like that has the experience themselves to be "skanky"!! Anyway **yawnnnnn** several hours later (or so it felt) the teacher eventually gets the boys locked in a torture area, he's got them tied up, ducked taped, all the boxes are starting to be ticked.... then it turns out all he wants to do is teach them a lesson... like an English lesson?! umm what, why?! Who thought watching a teacher teach children would make a good horror movie?! Basically all the teacher does is hit them with a hammer a few times if they answer wrong, one guy does get shot with a nail gun but it's hardly gripping scenes and again the acting is tragic!! To sum up one of the worst films of all time! Don't quit your day jobs guys and please don't attempt to make a sequel, occasionally English films throw up something spectacular and its movies like this that give English films a bad name!!

Tindal.. Your a F'ING Genius. OK like I usually state I put in reviews for movies that are not being represented properly or are overrated. Today I am focusing on "The Lesson" starring Robert Hands,Evan Bendall & Michaela Prchalov'a. Now is this movie overrated or underrated, well if your going by the IMDb rankings it would be neither.Let me explain. The user reviews are right on the money for anyone who gave a 8 or higher rating. But The rating ranking is 4.5 out of 10 which is such a terrible display of a ranking for an amazing movie it kinda upsets me that the critics could rate this movie so low. or maybe that's just a collective ranking from users and critics whatever the case may be "The Lesson" is a captivating intelligent gruesome and invigorating film displaying a teachers passion to teach at all costs and a students ability to learn on any level if pushed to the limit. The acting by Robert Hands was definitely some of the best work I have ever seen. Maybe this role was so close to his actual real life personality for him to pull it off so well but regardless of that he displayed award winning talent and he should definitely be considered in the league of A- list actors.The camera angles,The writing,the directing was also superb and the other actors were all sufficient but I felt there roles could of easily been replaceable by someone else which was not the case for Robert Hands who stole the show. The only reason I did not give it a 10 was because of added scenes towards the end which I feel were sort of useful for filling out the story and giving you the whole spectrum of the finalized result but it kinda thru off the speed or pace of the movie and I feel it would of been a more effective ending if it was 75% shorter. All in All though a great movie that is relevant in our society today and isn't that what it's really about. We watch and we learn so many things in our life time good and bad but if something isn't useful then what's the point in creating it.. Stay Safe Stay Blessed.. T.Kaine

The premise for this really caught my interest, a teacher getting revenge on some disrespectful little brats? Sign me up. Unfortunately while watching this it became very clear that this was not going to be an ultra gory torture/revenge flick, instead it played out more like an indie drama that just happened to have a horror premise. It starts off alright enough, the two boys are unlikable but I figured that was OK since the premise of the movie is about them being kidnapped/tortured. The big problem here though is that once the boys do get captured almost the entire rest of the movie is one big monologue delivered by the teacher character. This wouldn't be so bad if it was interesting dialogue, but it really isn't, he basically just goes through a bunch of things that the boys were supposed to learn in his class. This all leads up to a very underwhelming finale. Once everything was all said and done I didn't really feel anything, the movie never had me attached or interested in any of the characters. There are a few scenes that I could tell were suppose to be artsy/deep but they just felt forced. Overall I just wasn't into this, there isn't enough drama to make this a good indie drama and there definitely isn't enough horror to make this a good horror movie. There really isn't much to see here and you would probably be better off skipping it. 3/10

The Lesson