DATE: Monday, August 4, 1997                TAG: 9708020806

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E5   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: MOVIE REVIEW

SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, MOVIE CRITIC 

                                            LENGTH:   66 lines

FAMILIAR FILM LEAVES US DISTURBED, PUZZLED

``187'' IS DEFINITELY not a feel-good movie.

Yet again, it depicts what many of us fear, and some of us know, to be a truth about inner city public schools. Here, teachers are victimized by students who threaten lawsuits based on ``civil rights,'' rape and pillage at will, peddle drugs, and even kill.

Kevin Reynolds (``Waterworld,'' ``Robin Hood'') is not subtle in his direction. He trots out his juvenile delinquents in mystic lighting as if they were heroes. He allows scenes that are out of focus, backed by brooding non-music as his idea of bringing style to the project.

Most unfortunate for any shock value this film might have is the fact that this territory has been covered so frequently in films before this - beginning with the granddaddy of them all ``Blackboard Jungle'' some 40 years ago. Since then, there has been ``Lean on Me,'' ``Stand and Deliver,'' ``The Substitute,'' ``High School High'' and ``Up the Down Staircase,'' to name a few.

``187'' (pronounced 1-8-7), blessed with the presence of one of our best screen actors in Samuel L. Jackson, is different only in its second half - when it shifts gears to suggest that maybe, just maybe, the teacher may be taking revenge into his own hands - vigilante-style.

Jackson, who turned in one of last year's best performances in ``A Time to Kill,'' plays Trevor Garfield, a passionate science teacher who, in the film's opening segment, is attacked by a student using a 10-penny nail. He is nearly killed. He loses his passion as well as his drive. His life is forever changed.

Five years after this Brooklyn incident, we see him taking a job in the blighted area of Los Angeles. Why the geographic change? Is the movie out to prove that schools are just as bad in California as in New York?

Only later do we realize that the plot is trying to suggest that maybe Garfield was out for revenge in taking another teaching job. ``187,'' which is the California police code for homicide, is so muddled with cliches that it is difficult to take its serious subject seriously.

The teacher invites a female student to his home to tutor her, and is later surprised that this evolves into questions about his conduct. Could he have been that naive?

One of the more evil boy-students (Clifton Gonzales Gonzales) ends up with a finger cut off. Another ends up dead. Only the late suggestion that Garfield may have gone over the edge and done it lifts this familiar plot to a level of interest - and from the general to the specific. Are we dealing with a psycopath here?

The characters are largely stereotypes from old films - the wacked-out teacher who has given up and just takes the money (John Heard), the well-meaning but impoverished teacher (Kelly Rowan) and, of course, all the lowlife bums who are the students.

The film was written by Scott Yagemann, who spent nine years teaching in L.A. public schools.

The ending is so contrived and melodramatic that it only fits the exploitative film that has gone before. The end result is one of resignation rather than either outrage or solution. ``187'' is disturbing without being compelling. ILLUSTRATION: MOVIE REVIEW ``187''

Cast: Samuel L. Jackson, Kelly Rowan, Clifton Gonzales Gonzales,

John Heard

Director: Kevin Reynolds

MPAA rating: R (language, nudity, drugs, hanging a dog)

Mal's rating: **

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu