Dangerous Minds (1995)


“There are no victims in this classroom. ” – Louanne

Number of Times Seen – twice (Cable in the 90’s and 4 Mar 2018)

Brief Synopsis – A former marine takes a job as a teacher and quickly learns that she must get the students to trust her while also believing in themselves.

My Take on it – This film presents a really interesting idea that just doesn’t work as well as it might have.

The main reason for iot’s failing actually has to do with the casting of Michelle Pfeiffer in the lead.

She is clearly miscast in this film and most of what she is tasked to do just doesn’t feel realistic and genuine enough coming from her.

She’s a great actress, but this was just a role that she shouldn’t have been given.

The students in the class and the administration of the school seem too stereotypical and cliched and lack any amount of uniqueness that a story like this requires.

Besides Pfeiffer, the rest of the cast is also quite misused since they are mostly stereotypical characters who remains very undeveloped throughout the film.

The film’s theme song by Coolio is quite good and it remains the most memorable part of this film while leaving the story and characters in a place where it’s too easy to forget who they are and what they stand for.

There are lots of much better teacher-student films out there than this one.

Bottom Line – Interesting idea that doesn’t work as well as it could largely due to Pfeiffer feeling miscast in the lead. The students feel too cliched and that takes away from the uniqueness of it all.  The rest of the cast also just feel as if they are all meant to meet a stereotypical criteria without really developing any of them enough.  Theme song by Coolio is quite memorable and iconic but that unfortunately can’t be said for the film itself.

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – A running gag involves confusion between two lyrical men of words: Dylan Thomas and Bob Dylan. The similarity between the two names is not coincidental, as the latter adopted his performance name as a tribute to the former. (From IMDB)

Rating – BAFTA Worthy (6/10)

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6 thoughts on “Dangerous Minds (1995)

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