Lean On Me (1989)

Best movie of this year hands down!

Sorry, this movie sucks

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Joe Clark (Morgan Freeman) is a dedicated teacher and principal determined to fix the broken and crime infested Eastside High School in Trenton, New Jersey. Although tyrannical and unorthodox, Joe continues to weed out the negative influence of his school so that they can get an education. Although the school board, the Trenton Fire Department, and local activist Leonna Barrett (Lynne Thigpen) all want Joe gone, Joe fights for his students and reclaims the school in the end. Although Joe is not always the nicest person to be around, he has method to his madness. It's a really great story. The acting from everyone is great. Freeman always great and he really shines through here. I highly recommend Lean on Me.

When the movie starts, we see Joe Clark teaching class at Eastside High School in 1967. His students are intelligent, well-groomed, and well-behaved. He quits because the teachers' union has sold out to the school board or something vague like that. Twenty years later, the school has become so bad it makes the one in "Blackboard Jungle" (1955) look like the Blackboard Tropical Rainforest. The students are the meanest, most vicious bunch of high-school hoodlums ever displayed on the big screen.Oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention one more difference: all the clean-cut, intelligent students in the school in 1967 are white; most of the students in the school twenty years later are African American, with some Latinos, and a mere handful of whites. When I first saw this, I wondered if the movie had been produced by the Ku Klux Klan, because it comes across as a racist's worst nightmare. But, since the story is true, I guess those were the facts, and they just went with it. When Clark is asked to become the principal to help improve the students' test scores, I wondered how he could possibly do anything with them. Well, I don't want to take anything away from Clark, but not only does he have a bunch of security guards with him when he arrives, but on the second day, he also expels a whole bunch of students. Anybody could straighten out a school with dictatorial powers like that. Think how much Glenn Ford could have accomplished in "Blackboard Jungle" if he could have expelled Vic Morrow on the second day of class. Of course he succeeds with the remainder of the students, and all is well.Toward the end, a girl tells him she is pregnant. We never find out what she did about it. That way those who are pro-life can imagine her keeping the baby, and those who are pro-choice can imagine her having an abortion. Very clever, Hollywood.

Lean On Me is a film loosely based on the story of Joe Louis Clark,an educator known for his unorthodox means,who was assigned to become high school principal of Eastside High School.He was given the impossible task of reforming the school as it is at the risk of being overtaken by the state government.It stars Morgan Freeman,who portrays Clark,in his ascent to stardom.John G.Avildsen,who is known for underdog films in movies such as The Karate Kid and Rocky,is the director of the movie.Back in 1987,Joe Louis Clark was assigned to become the principal of Eastside High School,the worst known school in the state that is located at Paterson,New Jersey.The students have done poorly at the state test of minimum basic skills since their average scores hovers around 33% - way below the 75% minimum passing rate.The students have been known to be using drugs and involved with gang violence.When he arrives at the school,the radical Clark reprimands the entire faculty for their inability to control the students and their failure to do their job.Then,he dismisses hundreds of students that are identified as drug dealers and abusers as well as troublemakers.Despite his tyrannical approach and hard-line policies that he implemented that caused a lot of tension and alienation from his fellow faculty members and parents of the students,Clark was able to achieve results as he was able to straighten out Eastside High School later in time and he was able get the school's basic-skills test scores up.This led him to have the the job at the institution permanently. Although his tyrannical approach and hard-line policies alienate many members of the staff and the community, his uncompromising campaign gets results.This make him popular to the dismay of his critics and powerful enemies.Morgan Freeman provided a great portrayal as Joe Louis Clark that the viewer of the movie would somehow overcome the film's flaws such as predictability and having a formulaic screenplay.Aside from that,it was also cheesy.Although the viewer knows that that Clark will be able to achieve the impossible task of reforming Eastside despite his unorthodox methods and the tensions that were created by the people - students and faculty members - in the school,one will definitely enjoy and get entertained by his interesting peroformance.I could have given this film a rating of 8 BUT Freeman was simply excellent and remarkable that the viewer will definitely care more about his character as well as the actions he has taken instead of the flaws of the film as a whole.

The true story of 'crazy' Joe Clark, the fiery principal of Eastside High School in Patterson, New Jersey, is transformed by the director of 'The Karate Kid' and the original 'Rocky' into a (no surprise here) strictly artificial, assembly line crowd pleaser. The film is notable mostly for Morgan Freeman's typically dynamic portrayal of a compelling lead character: the George S. Patton of academics, who made his reputation by stalking school halls with a bullhorn, a baseball bat, and a series of tough, inspirational sermons, speeches and lectures to students and faculty alike about responsibility and pride.The deterioration of Eastside High from a model institution in 1967 to a mid-1980s netherworld of graffiti, drugs and indifference is introduced in a stunning visual dissolve, but the transition pales next to Clark's ascent from dedicated administrator to scholastic Messiah. Did the entire student body actually storm City Hall in protest of his arrest, and was he rescued by the 11th-hour arrival of the latest, improved test scores? It's unlikely, but let's face it: Hollywood never was much inclined to let the facts get in the way of a good story.