Review of Stand and Deliver (1988) by Jovon T — 20 May 2011

It's amiably watchable, but it's very disjointed, structure wise. It just jumps forward episodically, without much dramatic tension. There isn't a lot of conflict going on for most of it. Or what conflict there is zips by so quickly it's weightless.

There's also very little learning really going on for a film about teaching. It feels like a lot of important and interesting stuff is skipped over and brushed aside. Some of the acting is poor and most of the characterization is incidental.

Which would be fine, if it didn't feel like the kind of movie that needs to really explore its characters. Instead of focusing on a few it sweeps broadly across them all so none of them make any kind of real impact.

There are few defining moments for any of them and what we do get is, again, relatively breezy and treated as unimportant. That's not quite a tragedy, but it certainly undermines any feelings of triumph that might have come with the inevitable happy ending.

You can't expect a strong reaction if you haven't bothered to earn it.