Morgan BellREVIEW: Cheaters
April 23rd 2008 17:19
No not the obnoxious american reality tv show about unfaithful defactos but the feature film from 2000 inspired by real events about a group of inner-city slum kids conspiring with their teacher to cheat in an academic competition.
Directed & Written: John Stockwell (Crazy Beautiful, Into The Blue, Rock Star, Breast Men)
Starring: Jeff Daniels (The Hours, Pleasantville, Dumb & Dumber). Jena Malone (Donnie Darko, Life As A House, Stepmom, Hitler: The Rise of Evil)
This is a well-written little social commentary film about winning, success, and competition. Based on a true story it examines how and why people on the bottom rung of life feel they have to cheat and bend their morals to get to the top of the heap . . . well not even the top, but just a couple of rungs up so they dont get walked all over by absolutely everyone . . . i enjoyed this film as much a other similar based-on-real-life tales of dubious ethics like Shattered Glass (Hayden Christensen as the fabricating journalist for New Republic) or Catch Me If You Can (Leonardo DiCaprio as the con artist and cheque fraud expert Abagnale) or Blow (Johnny Depp as major 70s cocaine dealer George Jung) . . . but this story looks at the ethics of highschool teacher Dr Plecki (Daniels) a poor son of an immigrant who as a middle-aged man still lives at home with mum, his dad was cheated out of health insurance, he felt cheated when his business fails, and as a teacher he feels cheated by all the "smart" public school kids being funnelled into a rival school (Whitney Young Magney High School) in the region through a selective process . . . Dr Plecki basically feels that only people who cheat in life get ahead, so when an opportunity arises to instill his students with some pride and boost the morale of the underclass in a twisted way it seems like the only fair thing to do . . . Jena Malone is a standout as the witty little nymph of a student egging Plecki and the rest of the class on . . . this is an interesting film with great characters and a consistant pace, you will be drawn in to see how the ragtag bunch of misfits from Steinmetz High School use their smarts to pull off the most finely executed fraud the United States Academic Decathlon has ever seen!
Directed & Written: John Stockwell (Crazy Beautiful, Into The Blue, Rock Star, Breast Men)
Starring: Jeff Daniels (The Hours, Pleasantville, Dumb & Dumber). Jena Malone (Donnie Darko, Life As A House, Stepmom, Hitler: The Rise of Evil)
This is a well-written little social commentary film about winning, success, and competition. Based on a true story it examines how and why people on the bottom rung of life feel they have to cheat and bend their morals to get to the top of the heap . . . well not even the top, but just a couple of rungs up so they dont get walked all over by absolutely everyone . . . i enjoyed this film as much a other similar based-on-real-life tales of dubious ethics like Shattered Glass (Hayden Christensen as the fabricating journalist for New Republic) or Catch Me If You Can (Leonardo DiCaprio as the con artist and cheque fraud expert Abagnale) or Blow (Johnny Depp as major 70s cocaine dealer George Jung) . . . but this story looks at the ethics of highschool teacher Dr Plecki (Daniels) a poor son of an immigrant who as a middle-aged man still lives at home with mum, his dad was cheated out of health insurance, he felt cheated when his business fails, and as a teacher he feels cheated by all the "smart" public school kids being funnelled into a rival school (Whitney Young Magney High School) in the region through a selective process . . . Dr Plecki basically feels that only people who cheat in life get ahead, so when an opportunity arises to instill his students with some pride and boost the morale of the underclass in a twisted way it seems like the only fair thing to do . . . Jena Malone is a standout as the witty little nymph of a student egging Plecki and the rest of the class on . . . this is an interesting film with great characters and a consistant pace, you will be drawn in to see how the ragtag bunch of misfits from Steinmetz High School use their smarts to pull off the most finely executed fraud the United States Academic Decathlon has ever seen!
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yes, it was a timely and coincidental review wasnt it? haha . . . yeah i watched it on tv last night too, i was really impressed . . . they had some good stats at the end saying 80% of students admit to cheating, and one of the reasons Jena Malone character gave for cheating was that they were certain the other team would have been and they wanted to even the playing field . . . interesting symptom of a highly competitive society
hi Louie,
rainy weather is the best for movie watching!