DIRECTED BY: Kevin Reynolds
STARRING: Samuel L. Jackson, John Heard, Kelly Rowan, Clifton Collins Jr., Tony Plana, Karina Arroyave, Jack Kehler, Method Man, Lobo Sebastian, Demetrius Navarro, Jonah Rooney and Kathryn Leigh Scott
SYNOPSIS
After surviving a brutal attack by a student, teacher Trevor Garfield moves from New York to Los Angeles.
One Eight Seven has us following the life of High School Science teacher Trevor Garfield, Roosevelt Whitney High School whose life is threatened by a student to whom he has given a failing grade to, which leads to him being stabbed by the student. Over a year later we see Garfield has since moved from New York to Los Angles to work at John Quincy Adams High School, now as a substitute teacher, where violent bullies control the classrooms and the administration is afraid of lawsuits and slowly this begins to drive him mad.
One Eight Seven is a film penned by Scott Yagemann, who put his experiences of being a teacher in the Los Angeles public school system into this project and Kevin Reynolds directed the feature after working on the Kevin Costner film Waterworld, which stars Samuel L. Jackson in the lead role as the teacher we follow through the film known as Trevor Garfield, who is driven mad by how the system not only fails him, but the students that he wants to teach.
What I really liked from the film was the visual style that it went for, with its use of the colour palettes in showing the different in Garfield’s life between New York and upon moving to Los Angeles, as well as the camera effects, in one instance shaky cam before shaky cam was irritatingly the thing to do lately, is used in a way that highlights the turning point of Garfield’s descent into madness within himself. The film highlights the system of how some of the students set themselves out to take control of the classroom, go by their own rules and threaten lawsuits if teachers try to discipline them in any shape or form, showing and administration that gives no support in the process. Garfield’s already been done this route before which almost resulted in his death and when the pattern starts to emerge now when he’s out in Los Angeles, he sets out to take matters into his own hands. Samuel L. Jackson is a commanding presence as ever here as Trevor Garfield, a man who genuinely wants to teach, though outside of the classroom he remains guarded after surviving his ordeal in New York, no longer being the man he once was. Clifton Collins Jr. (then at the time known as Clifton Gonzalez Gonzalez) works as a perfect foil to Jackson’s character as César Sánchez, especially when it comes to their climatic scene in the final act involving russian roulette. It’s a scene that still polarises opinions on those that watch/have watched the film but both actors knock it out of the park. Also getting a chance to shine in the scenes she shares with Samuel L. Jackson is Karina Arroyave as Rita Martínez whom he goes out of his way to help.
There’s other sub-plots here in the film that I get why they’re there for but I just didn’t care for, such as John Heard’s character Dave Childress, who is more morally unhinged than Garfield though doesn’t act on those convictions like he does and actually doesn’t care for the profession in a way that he does. There’s also the friendship/relationship that builds between Garfield and Kelly Rowan’s Ellen Henry who notices that Garfield is more closed off than he lets on to be and at times her characters emotions are unbalanced from scene to scene and in the end, kind of lead to nothing. There’s a few performances here that bring the film down for me and the films last bit of text ‘a teacher wrote this movie’ may cause a few moans and groans amongst you as it feels unnecessarily shoehorned in after what we witness in the final act.
VERDICT
A film that asks some genuinely interesting questions, though when it goes for the thriller elements it may come across just too silly for some to take them seriously and the final act is a make or break moment for the film that you’ll either like it or detest it. Samuel L. Jackson still gives a really good performance that is worth checking out. 6/10
Irish Cinephile 