Black humour serves as coping mechanism when someone is to face unpleasant truths. In 1980s one such unpleasant truths for Americans, just as it is now, is the sorry state of public education. Attempt to depict it with slightly comedic approach in Teachers, 1984 film directed by Arthur Hiller, was not exactly successful.
The plot begins one Monday morning in Kennedy High School where students, just like any other day, have to experience stabbings, rampant drug dealing and almost complete failure to learn anything valuable in classrooms because their teachers are incompetent or even more dysfunctional than students themselves. Protagonist, played by Nick Nolte, is Alex Jurel, burned out social studies teacher who, not so long ago, used to be an idealist and who occasionally still tries to do the right thing. This puts him at odds with his more conformist colleagues led by old friend Vice Principal Roger Rubell (played by Judd Hirsch). Even more tensions are created by the lawsuit filed by the former student who had graduated despite being unable to read and write. He is represented by law firm that sends Lisa Hammond (played by JoBeth Williams), an attorney who used to be Jurel’s student few years ago, to collect depositions from members of faculty. Jurel is told by his colleagues and school administration to keep his mouth shut and not disclose any information that could lead to school losing the case. Hammond, on the other hand, tries to appeal to Jurel’s old idealism and things are even more complicated when he starts getting romantically attracted to her.
Irwin Russo, one of the film’s producers, has apparently spent ten years of his life as a teacher in New York City and that might explain why this film looks like realistic depiction of what actually went on in American classrooms. Unfortunately, the script by W.R. McKinney has sacrificed some of that realism for the sake of comedy which is, especially in the first part, too broad and often at odds with the generally serious tone of the film. Arthur Hiller as director doesn’t do much to remove that problem and the film also suffers from poor pacing which allows even less perceptive viewers to notice cliches that seem to pop up in most Hollywood films dealing with “blackboard jungles”. One of them is illiterate but street smart pupil, played by Ralph Macchio, whom the protagonist would try to reach and actually educate. Another is a female student, played by Laura Dern in one of her early roles, who gets pregnant by one of the teachers and whom must be assisted by protagonist while dealing with serious dilemmas related to abortion. Finally, there is a deeply troubled and mentally unbalanced student, played by terribly miscast Crispin Glover, who is about to become tragic fatality in obligatory scene involving firearms. While deeply flawed, Teachers is watchable, mostly thanks to great cast, especially Nick Nolte who could act jaded protagonists like Jurel in his sleep and who successfully deals with some not so fortunate dialogue lines brought by the script. Although there are some humorous scenes, including those featuring Richard Mulligan as eccentric but surprisingly successful history teacher, Teachers would probably be best remembered for the finale that features JoBeth Williams stripping and running naked in the school hallway. While this detail would please at least some segment of the audience, most are unlikely that take this supposedly serious drama seriously.
RATING: 5/10 (++)
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