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The Substitute | Year: 1996 Classification: Drama Directed: - Robert Mandel Actors/Actresses: - Tom Berenger Quality bad movie This is a quality entry in the high school hell genre of films. Tom Berenger plays John Shale, a mercenary who takes a job substitute teaching his girlfriend's high school hell class after some thugs from the school knee-cap her. Naturally, he's a Vietnam veteran who hasn't gotten over the war. He and his gang of similarly disturbed vets plan to bust a major drug ring in the school and take off with the cash that the principal, played by Ghostbuster Ernie Hudson, is making selling coke to his students. Of course, Shale gets very righteous and says it's not for the money in the end. This film ultimately delivers some quality violence as the high school is reduced to a war zone for a good ten minutes with not a cop, fireman, or ambulance in sight. Lots of people die, at some points I actually couldn't even tell who was shooting at who, but it just didn't matter. The gang is cleaned out of the school like a cancer, exterminated by Shale and thus gratifying his need to resolve the Vietnam conflict in his mind. Expect the requisite scene of him 'reaching' the troubled students one day by talking about war and being shot and then realizing that their urban ghetto is a warzone, too. Expect quality character acting by William Forsythe as one of Shale's whacko vet buddies who's along for the ride, evoking images of his demented turn as Richie in Out for Justice. This movie will get the job done on a slow night. The Substitute series is now a staple of late night cable, with Treat Williams playing another (psychotic) mercenary cleaning up trouble spots in our nation's schools. Recommended for genre fans... THIS IS THE BEST MOVIE TOM BERENGER HAS EVER BEEN IN A TOUGH MERCENARY [TOM BERENGER] BECOMES A SUBSTITUTE TEACHER FOR A CRIME INFESTED SCHOOL. VERY INTERESTING. THIS IS PROBABLY AS GOOD AS A TOM BERENGER MOVIE IS GONNA GET. BELIEVE IT OR NOT, MARC ANTHONY [WHO'S BEST REMEMBERED FOR 1998'S ''I NEED TO KNOW''] ACTUALLY HAS A ROLE IN THIS MOVIE AS A GANG LEADER. THIS IS DEFINITELY WORTH WATCHING. FOLLOWED BY THREE DIRECT-TO-VIDEO SEQUELS. "The Substitute" Review Tom Berenger is the head of a top-secret team of mercernaries, who decides to infiltrate a Miami high school after his girlfriend is beaten up, Nancy Kerrigan style, by one of the students. As it turns out, the school is being run by drug dealers and gang goons who answer to the principal, a former cop who runs a high-grade drug lab out of the basement in the gym. Any movie with Ernie Hudson as an evil high school principal, a wacked-out William Forsythe, and Latin singer Marc Anthony as the juvenile leader of a gang creatively titled the "Kings Of Destruction" can't be all bad, can it? Think of it as "Dangerous Minds" written for Steven Seagal. Buy The Substitute at Amazon.com Buy posters at Allposters.com Jamster - the latest ringtones for your phone!  Search with Walhello on the Internet on The Substitute Search with the Priority Search Engine on The Substitute This page in other languages: Suomeksi | Nederlands | Deutsch
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