There have been multitudinous films made on themes featuring bohemian teachers educating and influencing a slew of unruly adolescents. From Glen Ford in ’Blackboard Jungle’, Sidney Poitier in ’To Sir With Love’ to Morgan Freeman in ’Lean On Me’. Every decade has witnessed its serving of films in this genre.
Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson helm this gritty, fast paced drama ’Dangerous minds’. The story is set in an inner city high school where Louanne Johnson (Michelle Pfeiffer) an ex-Navy Seals marine turned English teacher joins to instruct a diverse group of students in a select educational program. She is smart, intelligent and enthusiastic but her pupils in the spotlight are offish, reticent, plain boisterous; you name it. To breakdown these manifold imaginary force fields they build around themselves she resorts to unconventional tactics.
Reverse psychology in the form of incorporating the lyrics of Bob Dylan’s songs like ’The Tambourine Man’ and even keywords and phrases from urban ’home boy’ lingo (the language of the streets) in her poetry classes. She even goes to the extent of taking the class out on a field trip to an amusement park as a reward for their work and billing the expenses to the school board. Now thats my idea of a cool teacher. But like any non-conformist instructor she faces her share of obstacles from a standoffish principal to reluctant and ignorant parents. But the spirit of integrity and the pursuit of education triumphs over this unawareness and stalemate conventions. Miss Johnson becomes the torchbearer for the disconcerted angst-ridden teenagers. All’s well that ends well.
’’Dangerous Minds’’ has nothing that we haven’t seen before in these sort of movies. But it is the approach and the director’s way of telling a story that makes it different. Plus its familiar counterparts had men at the blackboard not a woman. This different approach to the same issues that plague the youth population constantly make it a gripping and an entertaining affair.
Michelle Pfeiffer’s performance is of top-notch caliber. She is the luminous presence whose aura radiates inspiration. Just another success snugly under her belt of wonders. The student cast is convincing and authentic in their presentation. They aptly capture the very essence of mid city tenement suburbia. The script is easy to follow and thoroughly simple. No complicated innuendoes whatsoever. Each frame of events flows into the other. Some of the one-line statements actually strike a familiar chord with the viewer like this one -’ It takes a lot of wrong answers to get to the right one’. The theme song for the picture ’Gangsta’s Paradise’ by Coolio plays now and then in the background enforcing the somber mood of the proceedings.
On the whole ’’Dangerous Minds’’ has all the ingredients to ensure entertainment all the way. Just check it and see for yourself.