Having seen the trailer for the new Antonio Banderas film, Take the Lead, about a dozen times, I have to wonder why it is being so heavily marketed. This film looks like an absolute bomb and trends back to the eighties when a slew of movies were made featuring “bad” kids that just needed a caring teacher. Or a tough-as-nails principal wielding a bat. There’s no such thing as a bad kid; every student deserves a second chance; the passion of one teacher can change a life, nay, the whole world. Familiar themes and completely done before. I truly wonder if Hollywood is completely out of ideas at this point. Even if this movie is well acted and puts a little twist on this old theme, it’s still tired.
I can remember movies like this, one where a peculiar sort of dancing-fighting technique was taught to rebellious punks who, in the end, turned out to be big-hearted and misunderstood. Yawn. There will also be the one kid that just won’t buy into the program, that insists on causing trouble. He or she will will see their character development culminate in one horrendous act of bad behavior before being caught by someone, being forgiven by the teacher just when he thought everyone had given up on him, and then wallowing in guilt. When this character turns a corner and finds the good natured young man within we’ll know the entire group has been saved and the movie is concluding. Yawn.
The administration and other teachers will resist the notion that these kids can be saved, they’ll tell Banderas to stop wasting his time, they’ll bristle at his unorthodox attempts to keep them engaged, they’ll try to fire him. But he’ll persevere and keep fighting for these kids at great personal risk and ridicule. Yawn.
This does bring to mind an interesting list of movies though. I’d like to see some contribution from others as well. The best “school” movies you can think of. I wonder if that’s done enough to be considered a sort of genre? Anyway, my list of school based movies that I found enjoyable and their stars:
1. The Breakfast Club—Molly Ringwald and host of other has beens
2. The Prinicpal—Jim Belushi
3. Stand And Deliver—Edward James Olmos
4. Teachers—Nick Nolte
5. Back to School—Rodney Dangerfield
6. Animal House—Jim Belushi
7. Hiding Out—John Cryer
Give me some more! I think there was one with Louis Gossett Jr., but I can’t recall the name right now.
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