School Ties (1992)

I love this movie so much

Sick Product of a Sick System

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

The acting in this movie is really good.

We all have secrets, most often the concealing of a minor infraction. However, what if the secret concerns someone's identity or ethnicity among his or her peers? If the secret was revealed, would his opportunities be jeopardized? This is the plight David Green (Brendan Fraser in a fine performance) must face in "School Ties". In the 1950's, a prestigious college prep school, St. Matthews (modeled probably on Exeter Academy in New England) has been losing football games year after year, and the alumni is at their wits' ends. The alumni concoct an interesting strategy: put together a football scholarship and use it to compel an outstanding athlete to enroll in their school and improve their team.They find a crack-jack quarterback from Scranton, Pennsylvania, David Green, and compel him to attend their school for his senior year of high school. However, there's one catch: Green is Jewish, and St. Matthews is a private Anglican school where students are required to attend Christian services. Green decides to conceal his Jewish heritage and "play" along by attending services and hiding a Star of David necklace. He makes friends, and as the new quarterback, the football team becomes a success.However, Green's appearance at the school causes disruption in the tried-and-true storytelling device of "a stranger comes to town". He has knocked Charlie Dillon (Matt Damon in an outstanding supporting performance) out of the quarterback spot, and the latter will now play running back and blocker. Green becomes the star player. In one interesting scene, Dillon makes the crucial difference in a score but Green receives most of the credit. However, things continue to get worse for Dillon. His "girlfriend" Sally Wheeler (Amy Locane) begins to fall for Green at a school dance.Dillon has only one trump card to play against Green to undermine the latter's meteoric rise to the heights of school super-stardom, potentially the turning point of the story. A thoroughly compelling film from beginning to fade out. The cast is excellent with many young actors who will become name talent in their own right: Fraser, Damon, Ben Affleck, and Chris O'Donnell. And the story asks the question: will ethnic prejudice or individual character win the day?

Given a scholarship to an exclusive protestant boarding school in desperate need of a star quarterback, a Jewish athlete is instructed to conceal his religion with grave consequences in this drama set during the 1950s. Brendan Fraser provides an earnest turn as the internally conflicted young man in question, however, the movie takes an inordinate amount of time to warm up. The main dynamic driving the film, after all, is how all of Fraser's peers react after inevitably finding out the truth, and yet this does not occur until around halfway in with little else driving the plot. A fascinating subplot involves Zeljko Ivanek as a pedantic French teacher who causes one of Fraser's peers to have a mental breakdown. There are also some memorable dialogue exchanges as the students discuss the pressures and expectations placed upon them. Additionally, there is a curious dynamic at play with the school "using" Fraser for football and Fraser in turn using the school as a platform for college. That said, the vast majority of the film revolves around anti-Semitism, which is unfortunately never quite as interesting as kids cracking under pressure or a school manipulating its students. The anti-Semitism angles is not totally uninteresting though, especially as the boys discuss how few Jews they have actually known and come to realise that a lot of the stereotypes they have come to know might just be stereotypes, but the film could have easily been about so much more. Fraser is really good in any case, and same goes for Matt Damon as the student who most aggressively antagonises him.

In the drama, School Ties a young Jewish man is faced with concealing his religious identity in order to "fit in" at the extremely expensive private school that he has been awarded a football scholarship to. I enjoyed the first half of the movie, it was filled with laughs and good fun with all the boys at the school. Things were looking up for the young man but it all went south as soon as his classmates discovered who he really was. The fact that somebody could befriend someone and then totally betray them just because of their religion disgusts me, there were some scenes in the film that really got to me and made me quite upset. Although it does show people how real anti Semitism is in our world. In the society we live in people are raised to be an anti Semitist even if they are not meant to be. All in all I would have to say the film was alright but I think they could of used more explanation as to what happens at the end.

Brendan Fraser, Matt Dillon, Chris O'Donnell and Amy Locane star in this 1992 drama. This takes place in the 1950's and Fraser (The Mummy) plays David, a young man who gets into a religious Prep School, St. Matthews on a football scholarship. He tries keeping his Jewish religion a secret when he befriends and blends in with his classmates. Soon, he's unable to when they learn his secret. Dillon (The Bourne Identity) plays Charlie, David's new pal who eventually exposes his secret, O'Donnell (Batman Forever) plays David's roommate, Chris and Locane (Airheads) plays Sally, a girl David finds romance with. Ben Affleck, Cole Hauser, Anthony Rapp and Randall Batinkoff also appear. This is a pretty good film with a good cast and Maurice Jarre's score is great as usual. I recommend this.