 |  | Suprisingly Effective Berenger Action Movie |  |
The Substitute is one of those movies that you fear is going to be horrible, regardless of its potential. But it is actually a very entertaining movie that is a must-see for action movie buffs, and military/paramilitary movie buffs.
Berenger plays a mercenary who leads a team that travels all over the world engaging in clandestine activities. Back home in Florida with his girlfriend, Berenger springs into action when his teacher girlfriend is hurt by a thug at the high school where she teaches. Berenger decides to investigate undercover at the school, and he lands there as a history teacher. He soons finds that his girlfriend's assailant is a gang member helping to deal drugs out of the school. With the help of his team, Berenger works to uncover and smash the drug plot and revenge his girlfriend's assault. Ernie Hudson of Ghostbusters fame is the principal at the school who ends up getting his own mercenaries to protect his interests.
Berenger is not really known for being in action films, but he is very menacing and believable in this role. This is an excellent action film.
April 12, 2007A very good movie, Substitute, brings to the screen the story of a professional mercenary who goes undercover posing as a substitute teacher in an effort to shed light on the kneecapping of his fiancee, a history teacher at a Miami-Dade drug-infested high school, by gang members. What he finds though might be a bit more than he had anticipated...
There is obvious similarity between Substitute and Dangerous Minds starring Michelle Pfeifer (and which was released the previous year) in having teachers in classrooms with unruly students ending up winning them over.
Tom Berenger, Marc Antony (!), Ernie Hudson and the rest of the cast, with the exception of Diane Venora who is not really that great in her role as Jane Hetzko, have truly outdone themselves with their performances, which are outstanding to say the least! All the actors, without exceptions, give it their 100% and it really shows allowing for a highly entertaining movie.
The plot, the setting, and the music are all EXCELLENT.
Overall, it is a movie definitely worth watching, as it will surely provide for an evening's entertainment!
April 23, 2006| | | I give it "TWO THUMBS UP" | |
Tom Berenger plays Shale a mercenary who left his undercover job in Cuba now he is a undercover high school teacher at Columbus High in Miami wear not the students but other people are running a drug shipment keep the crack even the principal is in on it. Shale even changes his name as he pretends to be a teacher he is now call James Smith.
August 15, 2005 | | Dangerous Minds With A Body Count.....And Tom Berenger | |
I like The Substitute. I like those movies where some tough dude walks into a nasty gang ruled school and kicks some butt. The Principal is another good one. It's one of those rare action movies that's very easily direct-to-video material yet managed to get a theatrical release, kinda like Thomas Ian Griffith's Excessive Force. It's a hard movie not to like(unless you're a film snob) because it's one of those movies you wish would really happen. C'mon, it's fun to watch a badass mercenary throw some gang bangers who think they're hot stuff out a second story library window. Makes you wish teachers really could have the authority to pound up troublemakers. Basically this merc poses as a teacher to get revenge for the beating of his girlfriend. Cool enough. Then it gets a little on the unrealistic side as he uncovers a more sinister plot brewing beneath the school. SPOILER AHEAD:(But do you really care? This is a cliche action flick and I'm sure you'll all see this "twist" coming or have seen it done before.) A mercenary out for revenge on a gang is somewhat believable, but the principal running a big scale drug operation out of the school is pushing it a little. That and the fact that dead kids(and teachers) are turning up by the metric ton and the cops don't ever seem to notice. But hey, this is an action film, no need to be that critical. I also get a laugh out of these classroom scenes. You know what I'm talking about: Total chaos. Kids blasting boomboxes, throwing stuff around and telling the teacher to "&@$# off". I've never been to Miami or L.A. Do some schools really look like this? Berenger does a decent job as the hard, take-no-B.S. mercenary. Everyone's favorite latin singer Marc Anthony plays a gang leader, and the always likable Ernie Hudson is cool as the corrupt principal. Hudson can do a good bad guy when he wants to. William "Flatop" Forsythe is always fun to watch and here he's no exception. The Substitute is fun. Sure it wasn't received all that well from the critics upon it's release, but critics don't really tend to watch movies for the sake of simply enjoying them.
Check it out-No message, nothing deep or enlightening here just cheap, schlocky fun(like my ex-girlfriend).
November 21, 2004Tom 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.
April 26, 2004More reviews at Amazon.com ...
Daily Birthdays
