How sad is this?

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

This movie is not even close. I went to Steinmetz when this happened, and one of the kids in this was a friend of mine. We went to Monroe middle school together, and wound up going to the same high school. His name was Thomas and he was always smart and always top of his class. Neither school was portrayed accurately. This movie would have been OK if I didn't know any better. I guess its true what they say about a "based on a true story" movie. Its 5% truth and 95% fiction. I wish they would have done a little more research on the schools before making this film. Whitney Young was the school to beat at that time, but they were not the tidy little students you see in this film. They had the same gang fights we had, the same trouble makers in class (me), The thing they had that we didn't was better teachers.

Bottom line, cheating is fun, smart, and funny.Don't try this at school.This movie is a great film about the lives of a few students who cheat there way through school. Great acting and script is fantastic. It starts out good and ends even better. I was never bored throughout the whole time I was watching it. Even though a lot of the cheating is a bit unreasonable at times, it still give that feel that anyone can do it. If you are in the mood for some comedy about high school students who cheat, then watch this film. 2 thumbs up.

I attended Whitney Young H.S. and was a member of the 1st Whitney Young Academic Decathlon team in 1982; the first year this competition was nationalized. I was very interested to see this movie as I did not even realize Whitney Young had continued to win the Illinois competition.Had it not been for the misrepresentations in this movie, I probably would have given it a much better rating.For those outside of the Chicago area, basically Whitney Young AND Steinmetz are BOTH Chicago Public high schools. The difference is that Whitney Young is a magnet school, where you apply and get accepted on the basis of merit of your grades in elementary school, whereas Steinmetz is a district school which accepts anybody who lives in the neighborhood. Whitney Young is NOT a privileged school filled with rich kids (some of the people making comments, after seeing this movie, even had the impression that it might be private and/or suburban.) The overwhelming majority of my classmates were minorities, with nearly 70% black. As a matter of fact, there were probably more minorities at Whitney Young than Steinmetz, which is located in a white neighborhood on the north side of the city. I was disgusted by the Jeff Daniels' rant implying that rich suburbans were sending their kids into the city to attend a public high school; some line about this school being a "fortress in the city" -- The majority of kids who attend Whitney Young are from middle class and poor families. I just could not believe that Hollywood could stoop so low, to portray high achieving public inner city public school city kids as privileged snobs, for the apparent purpose of getting the audience to sympathize more with the Steinmetz kids .. to make us feel that the kids being cheated deserved to be cheated.And Whitney Young having cheerleaders at this event .. PLEASE .. that's just insulting the intelligence of the viewers.The reason that Whitney Young would consistently beat out other Chicago schools year after year is very simple: There is a system in place in Chicago with centralized magnet schools such as Young, Lane Tech, where all of the A students from grade schools across the city can attend and be in classes with each other ... for the purpose of having enough kids in the same place to provide advanced courses.The professor at Steinmetz who helped his students cheat, basically tried to cheat kids at another school who worked VERY hard to earn their spot, and that stinks. This film did a very good job at desensitizing the audience about the injustice done to the kids who actually EARNED the win, in order to help add sympathy to the Steinmetz students who were NOT underprivileged, but simply chose either NOT to apply to Whitney Young, or simply did not work for the grades to get into Whitney Young in the first place.The movie tries to make you feel sympathy for the cheaters, rather than the victims of the cheating. What a wonderful message for America.

This is a good film and I really like it. I really don't know why, but I'm keep on watching it. It's fun, yet it only just about cheating in the competition. But they have cheated because the people and their surrounding have pressurized them. Jeff Daniels as the teacher have to make a decision if he would allowed his student to cheat, he himself was pressurize by the fellow teachers and his mother saying he was up to nothing unlike his brother. Even after hard work they still fail. Of-course one would be disappointed. And when the chances come why not grab it. I would have cheated myself at least it would provoke the spirit of the team. After all the movie did bring out all the things it needed. And it seem people really like the movie.I do.Max: B+