Customer Reviews

One Eight Seven

5 star:		(41)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Other than its obvious telling from a teachers point of view, it gives you a rare glipse into latino ganster life in southern california(something not seen much in non-underground films.) It gets a bit unbelievable with the idea of a teacher going after his students outside of school when they push him over the edge, but that may be how some teachers really feel in that same situation. The ending is powerful because of how Samuel L. Jacksons character gets a hardcore latino gangster to break down and admit a sincere reason why he lives the type of life he does, also because of what Samuel L. Jackson is willing to do to himself for the life this gangster has had to lead and to prove a point in how unnessary it was to live that type of life. This movie really relates to me because I am someone who use to hang around latino gangs but gave it up realizing it was the wrong way to go.

I have been very fortunate to have a great job as a teacher. I have been lucky enough to see all different types of schools: rural, suburban, and urban. My three years in a Bronx high school were some of the most challenging, frustrating, rewarding, scary, funny, heartwarming, and gutwrenching of my life. Inner-city teaching is truly one of the toughest jobs in the world.

There have been many movies about inner-city teachers: Dangerous Minds, The Substitute, Teachers, The Principal just to name a few. While none of those movies are terrible and some were fun to watch, none of them really showed what it is like to be a teacher. 187 is the only teaching movie I have seen that captures the emotions a teacher goes through teaching in that environment.

Now parts of 187 get carried away. I won't deny that. But the basic theme of what can happen if a teacher takes a situation to the level of the students is universal. No teacher is going to hunt down his/her students like in the film but again the basic idea of how to handle a threat or violence in a school is universal.

I also like how the film discussed how Samuel Jackson's character is trying to regain his desire to teach and playing that off the young idealistic teacher and the burned out teacher. These are real characters and I felt the comparisson and outcomes was extremely credible.

Bottom line is this, I do not think non-teachers will love this movie they might like it. But this is a teachers movie. Again, its goes over the top at times but the basic themes and emotions are extremely accurate.

This is a powerful and realistic film.

Many teachers in today's school systems must feel helpless. Years ago there was the threat of corporal punishment, if not the actual fear of parent retaliation. Now, however, children are spoiled, often without strong male-role models (particularly in the more urban areas), there is simply no respect for authority or desire to contribute meaningfully to society, all parents think their child is a perfect little snowflake, and the outlook for a teacher in a troubled area is particularly bleak and hopeless.

Trevor Garfield (Samuel L. Jackson) is a high school teacher who has recently been reassigned as a substitute in a rough, dilapidated LA school district after suffering a shank attack at the hands of one of his former students. Realizing the corrupt, bereaucratic school administration will never help him when the misbehavior and student intimidation begins anew, Garfield is handcuffed by not only rules, but also fear, and the depressing reality that his values and morals are not shared by many of his students, particularly the local gang leaders Benny (Lobo Sebastian) and Cesar (Clifton Gonzalez Gonzalez). In no time at all, Garfield - who is immediately immersed in the gang culture when students begin to call him Mr. G, where G is for Gangster - breaks down psychologically and flips from gentle, timid, caring teacher to possessed madman intent on retaliation.

Samuel L. Jackson turns in a powerhouse performance in this movie, showing ghetto schools from a teacher's perspective. The attitude flip is classic Samuel L. Jackson, just as quick as Michael Douglas in Falling Down, but a bit more angry, and the retaliation used on the punk thugs throughout the movie, while over the top, is ingenious.

A teacher until the end, Mr. G proves that Cesar's way of life is meaningless, and instructs that he's willing to quite literally risk everything, to die, if it will provide one last lesson, one last Pyrrhic victory.

Clifton Gonzalez Gonzalez really does bring out a dramatic and interesting character in this story and i personally think this movie is two times better than Dangerous Minds. That movie doesn't have anything on this one. Samuel L. Jackson put forth a great effort and he came out on top an even better actor after I saw this. I really don't think he got enough credit for this movie and I don't think enough people have seen it, but everyone should. This movie has alot of emotion and the end is surprising and heartfelt. See it.

This film shows that teachers can have two jobs:

1) As teachers, but gererally only to the kids who want to learn.

2) As social workers/therapists, but generally only to the kids who do NOT want to learn.

I think it's fair to say that most kids who do NOT want to learn could use an attitude adjustment. As the film illustrates, helping some students adjust their attitudes (i.e., grow emotionally) can be an enormous challenge. And a background in clinical psychology/social work would certainly better prepare a teacher for this challenge!

I encourage students who are NOT interested in school to watch this film because:

1) IF they identify with the student characters in the film, THEN they may grow vicariously along with them.

2) They may see the point of view of their teachers for the first time. Specifically, that teachers (and by extension, anyone) can honestly care about them, regardless of their repeatedly disrespectful behavior. As the movie illustrates so well, SED (severely emotionally disturbed) kids may NOT be able to believe that anyone, including a teacher, cares about them. Thus, kids with similar trust issues who watch this movie, may appreciate and become more respectful of their teachers IF they start believing that their teachers really care about them.

3) They may begin to appreciate/respect their teachers more once they realize how challenging a teacher's job can be.

4) Finally, it helps to have a popular star like Samuel Jackson glorifying the image of the teacher.

In conclusion, recently I have began substitute teaching at a middle school in Mountain View, CA. Generally, I spend most of my class time with those students who are the least interested in learning.

I commend the makers of this important film for teachers AND STUDENTS!

A former principal once said (in utter irony) that teachers would like to "teach the best and shoot the rest," but that was not going to happen (teaching only the best and shooting the rest). Basically, that idea is the premise of "187," a term referring to the on-air police code for "dead."

Early in the movie, when Samuel L. Jackson's character Trevor Garfield is stabbed repeatedly in the back after warning his principal that this very act was going to happen, the viewer viscerally understands a teacher's stultifying fear in an urban school when there is no support. Garfield does not die physically, but something inside him does. Not his will power, it thrives. Not his machismo, it heightens. Not his desire to teach, but a piece of it breaks off to become dark and malignant. Not his compassion, but it forks into something normal and something twisted. A vicious act, not just on Garfield's person, but also on his choice of how to value and direct his life, chips away some of his humanity.

After a more than year-long recovery Garfield traverses a continent away from New York to settle in California and begin substitute teaching. His assignment? Where else but in a "temporary" building subject to gang-banger violence and mayhem. On his first day he is dealt a threat by an police-ankle-bracelet-wearing gang-banger. Of course, there is the requisite confrontation between the two, setting up inevitable violence. Deja vu!

Then there's the stereotypical teen girl with a heart of gold who hands out her "favors" as if she is passing out candy. Garfield determines to look after and encourage her as a person of worth. Two other stereotypes flank Garfield: the innocent young teacher (Kelly Rowan) with idealism in her eyes and heart and the jaundiced, veteran teacher (John Heard) who's in it "for the paycheck." Garfield stands in between: realistic in experience, idealistic in hope.

Yet gang-bangers just won't let him be. Remember that dark and growing malignancy in his heart? What will he do with it? Does he become a victim of his environment like Gonzalez or does he overcome it?

This film shows evil committed by evil people. Or is that the point? Is this about one good teacher opposed by a bunch of lowlife gang-bangers set on destruction, violence, ruination, rape? The film subtly suggests that evil is not committed by choice but caused by the traps of society at large and urban decay in particular. It's a short moment, but a veritable revelation when Clifton Gonzalez Gonzalez's gang-banger character excretes his defense for his violent acts. Gonzalez duly impresses with his excellent portrayal of a young man doomed not by his environment, but by his own inability to defy the prison that is his environment.

Although the story is set in California, the land of the strange allows students such ridiculous freedoms as wearing "wife-beater" undershirts, chains as belts, open smoking on campus, including that illegal reefer, unsupervised areas where true "gang-banging" takes place with this young girl with no self-esteem, and sets up an environment of too much freedom, which allows, even encourages disrespect. The school in New York was no different.

This dark film, "187," is not for the weak of heart. It makes crystal clear just how much violence can impact a person in a given situation. How does a dedicated teacher escape attacks by equally dedicated gang-bangers? Is there a way to halt escalating violence once it begins? Is there a solution? This film proffers one view, that of Director Kevin Reynolds and Writer Scott Yagemann. The end credit attributes the script to a teacher.

Despite the stereotyping of all the major characters, the movie works, mainly because of the consummate acting all around and credibility. Can such a story happen? I think so. Can men come to such a momentous act? Absolutely. Can they back down, given the circumstances? Yes, but not likely, not with all the existing factors in play.

"187"--powerful, provocative, profound, deadly.

This movie, arguably one of Samuel L. Jackson's best performances, tells a very real, very gripping story that you can read about in the other reviews. This review is mostly in response to one of the reviews down below, in which the reviewer says that he couldn't remember anything about this movie a week after he watched it.

The final scene of this movie is so profound and so downright shocking, that I don't see how anyone could forget it. It drives home its point like a slap across the face: REALLY GOOD Teachers give lessons for their students in EVERYTHING that they do. In this case, it was not so much the lesson that was shocking, but HOW it was taught.

I saw only the last 2/3 of this movie over 3 months ago and even then, I still can't get it out of my head. Definitely worth seeing!

I have seen this movie several times but haven't watched it again recently, so this is not a slate to slate review of the entire movie, just some quickly jotted thoughts.

First of all, who am I?

I teach the kids who are in this movie in the maximum security facility where I work here in So. Cal. I have taught kids in the inner city for about 20 years. The stabbing incident you see in this movie happened to me in my classroom, but instead of being punctured by the punk with a pencil, I instinctively threw him over my shoulder onto his back in front of the whole class while I was taking roll at 8:30 in the morning. His fellow students jeered him and told him, "Sit yo stupid a** down, n*ggah, you can't even stab some cracker a** teacher!" He went to his seat ashamedly and never tried to attack me again. I kept taking roll. Another time, a student cut the brake lines on an old truck I kept as a second vehicle and used drive to work so that the students would not see what I really drive. I figured it out before his vandalism got me killed. I called his home the next day and found out that he actually had a father who took great interest in his son's behavior. The little hoodlum did not show up for three days at school. His friends told me that his dad beat the stuffing out of him. Sure enough, the brake line cutter showed up with lots of bruises and a newfound "respect for authority."

Who are the kids in the movie?

In reality, the situation is much worse than the movie portrays; the youths are infinitely more nihilistic than this movie indicates. They tend to hate all forms of societally sanctioned "authority": but especially teachers, law enforcement, etc. In reality, they have inured themselves to the mindset of "predator" or "wolf," as characterized respectively by such authors as Sgt. Rory Miller ("Meditations on Violence") and Lt. Col. David Grossman ("On Killing"). If you have not read these books and are interested in the moral, psychological, and social dimensions explored in these books and in this movie, then you should read them and watch this movie. This is a must see movie for you, especially if you teach or intend to teach the populations shown in these movies. Inner city neighborhoods and, increasingly, the exurbs as well, are breeding more of this type of youth every year as their reproductive numbers increase with each new generation of "kids" having "kids."

Here is the conundrum raised by this movie: If the "children" depicted in this movie cannot be "reached" or "changed for the better" by their teachers unless and until they renounce their commitment to a set of values, a worldview (Weltanschauung), and a way of being in the world antithetical to humanity, and if they will refuse to renounce their commitment to a set of values, a worldview (Weltanschauung), and a way of being in the world which is diametrically opposed to humanity unless and until they already have been "reached" or "changed for the better" by their teachers, then will these "kids" be able to change in time and before they have already found themselves standing in the dock facing 25+yr. prison sentences for having killed, robbed, and carjacked their way into adulthood?

Is this bleak?

Yes.

Is there a solution?

I don't know of one.

Morals of the story: Always watch your own back. Human beings understand reason, dignity, and compassion. Predators understand strength.

A unique story of inspiration and depravation that although predictable has many good points and performances. Jackson plays a school teacher who is attacked and almost murdered by one of his gang banging students. Fast-forward months later and he takes a job in another inner city school trying to put his life back together and over come fear and losing sight of the positive side of life. I'm not a teacher, but the scenes dealing with Jackson and the other teacher's struggle to stay focused and inspired to teach in a very hostel and depressing environment are really well done. I did find this film to be a little more obvious than it thinks it is, but it does have a pretty effective ending and Jackson is always good at being, well.....Jackson!

One inner-city high school becomes the site for a deadly battle when a victimized teacher fights back against gang members. This movie has an excellent story line and the acting ability is truely great. Excellent ending and full of tense moments and nail bitting twists. It is an great movie and a classic Samuel performance.