When a school has less-than-average basic skills test scores, it faces being taken over by the state. So the mayor asks the school superintendent for help, and he suggests that they appoint Joe Clark as the school principal.
When he arrives, he shakes things up by reassigning teachers and calling out their flaws.
But it isn't long before a lot of people want him out, but at the same time, he gains the respect of some of the teachers and the students....
Lean on me is one of a slew of high school gone bad films that graced cinemas in the late eighties and nineties. Films like Dangerous Minds and Stand and Deliver spring to mind, and although this is a tour de force for Freeman, it carries the usual tropes that this sub genre gets weighed down by.
We have all the atypical bad students expelled, and there is always one promising that they will get their revenge, and then you have the other one who begs to come back, and makes good.
Then you have the teachers who are against him, and so they get their just desserts when the narrative calls for it.
And then finally, we have the student who's known Freeman for years, he say's see if you ever have a problem, and guess what? Half way through the second act, something happens where only Freeman can help.
Although the film spoon feeds you all these tropes, it's worth seeing just for Freeman's wonderful performance. This is why he's in every other film that is released.
It's one of the better high school films, is ably directed, and the script is gritty enough to keep you hooked.
When he arrives, he shakes things up by reassigning teachers and calling out their flaws.
But it isn't long before a lot of people want him out, but at the same time, he gains the respect of some of the teachers and the students....
Lean on me is one of a slew of high school gone bad films that graced cinemas in the late eighties and nineties. Films like Dangerous Minds and Stand and Deliver spring to mind, and although this is a tour de force for Freeman, it carries the usual tropes that this sub genre gets weighed down by.
We have all the atypical bad students expelled, and there is always one promising that they will get their revenge, and then you have the other one who begs to come back, and makes good.
Then you have the teachers who are against him, and so they get their just desserts when the narrative calls for it.
And then finally, we have the student who's known Freeman for years, he say's see if you ever have a problem, and guess what? Half way through the second act, something happens where only Freeman can help.
Although the film spoon feeds you all these tropes, it's worth seeing just for Freeman's wonderful performance. This is why he's in every other film that is released.
It's one of the better high school films, is ably directed, and the script is gritty enough to keep you hooked.