Fantastic!

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

This story about a teacher challenged in a school full of dangerous and bored delinquents is set in Los Angeles, which is fast becoming for urban misery what New York was twenty years ago. See L.A. and die. Except that in this movie's panoramic views, you can't quite see the city because it's encased in a smog that approximates the true color of nitrogen dioxide. If L.A. were a duck, it would be duck a l'orange.I didn't expect much from this sort of tale. It's been done many times before. The teacher who is devoted to his job, the sexy colleague, the rude and foul-mouthed students, with one or two good ones sprinkled among them. The constant challenges, the humiliations, the keyed car, the gangs, the girl with the crush, the embittered colleagues who see their charges as beyond salvage. Watching all this familiar stuff play out on the screen is actually reassuring, comforting. It's like going to mass as a child, knowing exactly what rituals to expect. Here come the censer.I suppose the original, "Blackboard Jungle," back in the 50s, provided the framework that has now turned all but inescapable. High school movies that don't have the threat of violence are kind of dull, "Up The Down Staircase." The central problem for most of these school movies about deprived and depraved students is, "How can I reach them?" This one is different, though, and it kept me engaged throughout because the question here is, "CAN I reach them?" The answer is yes, but not without a price. Jackson's victory is Pyrrhic. It wasn't worth the price.The direction is perfectly ordinary and without distinction. The script at time stumbles all over the place, like one of those Chicano kids on tequila. At the climax, it drops dead with a speech.Jackson is a wounded saint, having been stabbed in the back in a Brooklyn school before moving to L.A. He never loses his temper, no matter whether provoked by some teen-aged moron, betrayed by his principal, or accused of murder by the blond colleague who has previously groveled at his feet and practically denuded herself in his presence.The blond, Kelly Rowan, is almost perfect in the part, though it's overwritten like all the others. She's not quite Hollywood pretty and she's at the age of near desperation. There have been a couple of truly fine black actors since Sidney Poitier and Samuel L. Jackson is among them. He's a magnetic presence. And his range as an actor is expansive. He can be a thoroughly believable savvy street gangsta, as in "Jackie Brown," or a straight teacher with glasses, as he is here. Morgan Freeman is able to do the same thing, but his age now restricts the variety of his roles. He can't be the perspicacious pimp who kicks a client in the balls anymore, as he did in "Street Smart." Now he's got to be Jung's "wise old man." I won't give away the ending because (1) it's silly and (2) it's unexpected.

Shot in sear brown, this one stokes up the fire. Here's a more intense gang movie as to the Boys In The Hoodz, types. This one really has you involved right from the start. Playing the more introverted types, out of the norm, for Jackson, it's just an excellent performance, among many fine others. He plays a teacher who's finally pushed, beyond breaking point, by a trio of homeboys, at the new L.A high school he's attended, after surviving a knifing, by a disgruntled and failing homeboy, Jackson's character, before this, as a more brighter, cheerier teacher. He makes the transformation well. As the movie furthers along, he becomes more pushed, may'be so much so much, he's exacted violence on these troublemakers, or worse, driven to kill one of them. Getting with the times, the movie, written by an actual teacher, turns a different corner of plot, into a sort of thriller, where as to the teacher being on trial. This realistic movie, gets a proper grip on the teachers situation, as to what these poor souls endure, like living in fear, subjecting to taunts, threats and ridicule, where others are driven into madness, like the John Heard character. It's easy to see how some people can say it's a morbid and biased telling of story, where everything not as bleak as this movie shows, but I don't agree. The same could say about River's Edge, how it all wallows in the mire, it's all so depressing, but the truth be told, some tales are, and you can't hide from the truth, especially when written by someone one, who has first hand knowledge of he subject. The inevitable showdown between Jackson, and three thugs, who invade his home, where he's forced into admittance, regarding a dead homeboy friend of theirs, is the film's real moment of sweating intensity. The leader, Caesar is one fearful bad boy, a bust out performance by Clifton Gonzales Junior, a professional new star in the making. They have Jackson, play Russian roulette, Deer Hunter style, Caesar watching a bit too much t.v. We are witness to him yelling expletives to his long suffering mother, and when his homeboys friend turn on him, as Jackson informs them, of his physical abuse towards his mother, Caesar's the one who turns scared for a pith, as Jackson makes his getaway. 187 has great music, and we learn a bit too, in the classroom, not just out of it. The performances excel, like Heard, Rowan, and the versatile Tony Plana, as the headmaster at Jackson's new school. Of course, no one can hold a candle to Clifton Collins, blistering performance, one you'll remember for years to come. May'be this film could act as a teaching tool, for bullied teachers, whatever, and curb this madness, but fat chance. You really need to cut teachers a break, cause bad things shouldn't happen to good people. Tight compact drama, all the way.

Samuel L Jackson excels in this movie as do all the cast. The script is well penned setting the scene perfectly.Some of the cinematography is excellent displaying some fantastic views of the streets of Los-Angeles neatly inter-spliced with subtle atmospheric music. In fairness seven out of ten is a touch conservative as I don't think there is any area where this movie could have been improved. Certainly one of Samuel L Jacksons finest underrated gems.I would definitely watch 187 again if for no other reason then to see some of those sumptuous camera angles once more.

This movie rings true and deserves a good grade. It is very difficult to portray classroom and teacher student relationships authentically and accurately. The scenario has been done many times with varying degrees of success. It must also be mentioned that TV shows have overdone this genre to the point of dumbed down numbness.Unless experienced, the difficulty in reaching and educating in the big city schools today can only be imagined, and fiction usually results in flights of fancy.The students and educators are presented here without much hyperbolic drama, although some encounters are heavy handed but the situations seem real. The ending is abrupt and really takes it to another level, but until then it is a scary and tension filled semester.As this film demonstrates teaching is one of the most underrated, undervalued, under-appreciated, and underpaid of the public service sector. That is unfortunate for our children and the progress of our society.