Inspiring portrait of an inner city teacher who discovers that making students feel good about themselves brings learning alive in the classroom.
Dangerous Minds (1995)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:36
Fresh:11
Rotten:25
Average Rating:4.7/10
Runtime: 1 hr 39 mins
Genre: Dramas
Synopsis: The true story of one teacher's struggle to have a positive effect on her students' lives. Ex-Marine LouAnne Johnson abandons her military career in order to pursue her dream of becoming an... The true story of one teacher's struggle to have a positive effect on her students' lives. Ex-Marine LouAnne Johnson abandons her military career in order to pursue her dream of becoming an English teacher. When she is assigned to Parkmont High, a rough "inner-city" school, she soon finds that teaching English is going to be tougher than she expected. Clearly, her bored, surly, unhappy students would rather be anywhere else than in class. However, LouAnne tackles this obstacle, employing unconventional tactics to get through to the kids: she uses Bob Dylan's lyrics to teach poetry, rewards the students with candy bars, and even takes them out for an expensive dinner. Soon, LouAnne notices a change in her pupils, who are beginning to see school -- and life -- in a new light. [More]
Starring: Michelle Pfeiffer, George Dzundza, Courtney B. Vance, Robin Bartlett
Starring: Michelle Pfeiffer, George Dzundza, Courtney B. Vance, Robin Bartlett, Beatrice Winde, Bruklin Harris, Renoly Santiago, Lorraine Toussaint
Director: John N. Smith
Director: John N. Smith
Producer: Don Simpson, Jerry Bruckheimer
Screenwriter: Ronald Bass
Producer: Sandra Rabins, Lucas Foster
Reviews for Dangerous Minds
Pfeiffer gives a funny, scrappy performance that makes you feel a committed teacher's fire to make a difference.
The tale screenwriter Ronald Bass came up with, and the way director John N. Smith tells it, is stereotypical, predictable and simplified to the point of meaninglessness.
Some of the one-on-one teacher-student interplay is tremendously compelling.
Anchored by Michelle Pfeiffer's sterling central performance, Dangerous Minds is a strong addition to the genre.
There's not enough backstory for or insight into any of the characters, which keeps them at an emotional distance.
What makes it work is the integrity of Pfeiffer's performance and Smith's direction, and the high spirits of the young, racially diverse supporting cast.
A no-frills, single-minded drama driven by Pfeiffer's totally committed performance.
If only the filmmakers had used some subtlety in telling the story, they could have done right by the real LouAnne Johnson.
Never illuminates the true spirit of learning, instead the movie opts for bribing students to read pretentious Bob Dylan lyrics.
Pfieffer is absurdly miscast: Sly Stallone would make a more plausible Mr. Chips than the frail, squeaky actress does a nine-year veteran of the Marine Corps.
The movie pretends to show poor black kids being bribed into literacy by Dylan and candy bars, but actually it is the crossover white audience that is being bribed with mind-candy in the form of safe words by the two Dylans.
The movie has real emotional and reportorial credibility, a prime source of its power.
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