Detention (2004)

Highly Overrated But Still Good

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

I watch pretty much all those B action movies i can find, even tough i know some will be mediocre and very low budget. More often than not they got a little something to catch me in, no matter if its Seagal, Van Damme, Lundgren or some others like that. Sometimes i actually enjoy them a lot.This movie is just below the middle of those. I tough the plot was really "streched" to fit the movie, the character over the top overacted but not in a good way. Take Van Damme's Ennemies Closer bad guy character, he was over the top but hilarious and kick ass. Here the bad guy was just getting on my nerve from being so retarded.But the movie has a couple little surprises and Dolph even tough pretty "ordinary" do a correct job as the lead. Somewhat i just didn't felt for the other characters at all, either because the villains where so corny and cartoon or the character development was just too poor.Also i must note i didn't saw such bullet spraying all over the place and target missing since Commando... Seriously the bad guys couldn't hit the characters 10 feet away barely moving. It was sad to look at. Its like the bullets where just deflecting on an invisible barrier...In any case like i said, i saw worst from Dolph, but i saw much better, and im only counting his low budget DTV movies, not expendables and such.

Sam Decker (Dolph) was "The Best" as a soldier in the Bosnia conflict. Now he's a gym/history teacher at Lincoln High School. After receiving another job offer, he announces his last day in this hellhole of stupid, annoying punk kids. But then he's put on detention duty. While babysitting a roundup of stereotypes, a group of Hungarian drug runners led by Lamb (Karzis) and Gloria (Dobo) - and of course Alek (Mif) put the school on lockdown and then start shooting at/terrorizing who happens to be left after school that day. It's now up to the heroic Mr. Decker to get the kids to safety and take down the baddies, using only what he happens to find in the way of school supplies. Will Decker sentence his enemies to detention - permanently?Now while it was somewhat cool to see Dolph as a high school teacher, this Nu-Image take on The Principal and The Substitute is run-of-the-mill at best. Its "Die Hard in a school" scenario turns the dumbness factor to 11 and is filled with amazingly inane, insipid dialogue, but somehow finds no time for any surprises, twists, or anything at all that would make this outing worthwhile, plotwise. This is certainly the closest Dolph has yet come to being in an Urban Justice-type movie. But just imagine Lethal Tender (1997) meets The Breakfast Club (1985). Now these are some REALLY Dangerous Minds. This movie is just horribly written. Besides the horrendous dialogue mentioned earlier, it's never properly or clearly explained just why these bad guys are taking over the school. We learn once we're deep into the film that they're drug runners, but that's it. Their motivation for doing what they do should have been much clearer. It's like the writers found it hard to find a reason why antagonists would take over a school, so they just slacked off and didn't really bother to explain it. Plus, other characters are unexplained/forgotten. Never mind all the audience-insulting gaps in logic and plot holes, which normally we don't point out or care about, but here it's just so irritatingly sloppy and nonsensical, it's not even fun. And at 98 minutes, Detention does indeed feel like a punishment. What makes it really sad is that director Sidney J. Furie has had a long and rich career that dates back to the 50's. He's an experienced director and really should have known better. He worked with Dolph the year after this on Direct Action (2004) and also directed The Rage (1997). What he should have realized is that this movie needed more goons for Dolph to dispatch and less super-annoying kids. Karzis was decent as the head bad guy, but this role easily could have gone to Corey Feldman. Or, even better, Kim Coates. He must have been busy working on something nearby, as this movie was shot in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, and Coates tends to appear in these low-budget Canadian productions. Really, Detention is very similar to Command Performance (2009), except that here he's the cool teacher instead of the cool drummer, and they're trapped in a school instead of a stadium. And Command Performance is a lot better.Despite the presence of 1. an exploding helicopter 2. the fact that the principal has a nameplate that says "L. Neeson" but we don't see him, presumably implying that the principal of the school is Liam Neeson but we conveniently don't see him after school 3. the end credits song is typical Nu-Image Nu-metal by a Nu band named "Feebo", thus proving anything that uses the spelling "Nu" sucks, and 4. There's a credit at the end for "emotional support", which makes sense, because by about the 70 minute mark you're certainly enduring Detention, not enjoying it - so this is a movie that is kept afloat solely by the presence and likability of Dolph Lundgren. Like fellow Nu-Image production The Last Warrior (2000), this movie would be unbearable if he wasn't in the cast.Except for Dolph, this movie is so lame, it makes "Teach Tony Danza" look like a bad-ass action movie. Watching this crud is like fingernails on a blackboard.For more insanity, please visit: comeuppancereviews.com

I like Dolph Lundgren. And I like a lot more of that "A Minus-Movie" stars. I never understand how they do movies like this. (Maybe that's the reason Dolph Lundgren started to direct his own movies recently) This movie is a mimic of the old "Die Hard" theme. This time in a school. But the supposed "terrorists" are total freaked out punks. Some could do some decent movie out of this plot, but here it fails. Dolph plays an ex-soldier, but then he makes the same errors a frightened normal person would make. If you had a very bad day and need some cheap fun, you can watch Dolph running around in a High School set kicking other peoples 'back'. But just ignore the blatant goofs and this truckload of illogic that seems to be common in "that type" of movies.

To slightly correct my summary line: It's not all bad. It begins portraying a High-School in what I can, as a European Citizen, a very bad neighborhood. Every Kid has an attitude. Well after a phone call it gets clear that Lundgren got a very good offer for another job in a good neighborhood. So he gives his resignation immediately. The Pricipal sticks him with Detention for some very bad kids. Well then some drug dealers arrive and are planning a big deal and have a good plan for an exit. Which would by the way be totally unnecessary in real live and is completely a lot of stress for nothing.. I don't know why they planned that. Well what shall I say.. Bad guys in the school (since they want to make there drug deal there because they think nobody would suspect anything). Well guess what: Dolph Lundren and the brats (well older ones but still brats) unite to get out of school alive. In the beginning nobody likes anyone else but then.. well guess what.. They find a way to work together and do what is always being done. Kill one of the bad guys after the next. Since the badguys wisely go around alone... They would have a much greater chance if they went together in higher numbers they could take their enemies. But of course then the kids couldn't take them and the movie would be a lot shorter. But now: 1 Guy against some kids plus sometimes Dolph when he is not alone doing, well what he does.. Oh and I forgot: In the real beginning.. when the DVD Player says: 00:00:01 you begin to see him as part of a special unit in bosnia ten years ago where he is helping children out of a building that's going to be bombed. But with one kid he is too late, the kid is taken by a terrorist.. Well after that it switches to the school and so it begins... regards, Stephan from Austria But: It's not boring to watch.. you just have to sit there and watch. You don't have to think.. If you are looking just to be entertained, well this movie is kinda like Die Hard, but cheaper.