187 (1997, VHS)

187 tries to pass itself off as an honest exploration of inner-school conflict, but it eventually resolves itself in worst comic-book style.

The movie centers on Trevor Garfield (Samuel L. Jackson), a New York teacher stabbed by a gangster-student while a bureaucratic system looked the other way. Eighteen months later, Garfield has moved to Los Angeles and is working as a substitute teacher. This should be the first sign that the movie is not all it's cracked up to be. The man moved to the other end of the country? Why? To find a new life? Then why is he serving as a substitute?

Garfield "subs" in a class just as bad as his old one, full of gang members and hopeless barrio residents. He befriends fellow teacher Ellen Henry (Kelly Rowan), who's a similar study in burn-out, and they have a discreet romance. But again, why? Just because the teachers are of opposite sexes, the movie assumes they can't be friends on their own terms. This is a screenplay with one eye on gritty urban realism and the other eye on demographic appeal.

Still, the movie manages much believable tension in the first half, as Garfield tries to find ways both to get through to his students and to carry on in his chosen field. Then, a gang-related incident makes Garfield, and the movie, fall apart.

Without giving away plot points, it's safe to say that Garfield resolves his tensions a little too meticulously for someone who is supposed to have snapped. And the movie's climax is very telling, having been inspired by another movie with pretensions of greatness that were played out in cartoon style.

The movie's nihilistic viewpoint is just too easy. 187's closing title smugly informs us that "A teacher wrote this movie," as if that justifies everything that came before. Well, no, the truth is that an ex-teacher wrote a cynical vigilante fantasy and got paid big Hollywood bucks for it. So the movie teaches us a different lesson from the intended one.

Director Kevin Reynolds doesn't help matters. The story should be told in a close, intimate style. But Reynolds photographs even the lowliest barrios with a burnt orange glow that has "art-house film" written all over it. Add some fancy, Woody Allen-style camera pirouettes, and you have the latest in fashionable cynicism.

The acting is quite varied. Samuel L. Jackson continues his pattern of giving powerhouse performances in mediocre movies (Pulp Fiction notwithstanding). Kelly Rowan quietly suggests a teacher with a hole in her soul. The rest of the performers are pretty much left stranded. Besides the stereotypical gang members, one feels sorriest for John Hurt, as a teacher who does a drunken monologue about his gun collection that has to be seen to be disbelieved.

All of this seaminess is supposed to be believed because it was concocted by a teacher. In the tradition of 187, let me close by saying that a seven-year teacher wrote this review.

187 is rated R for adult language, violence, and brief nudity.