Entertaining, if you like heavy melodrama with little substance.

Rating: 5/10 (20 August 2001)

After all the hoopla, what really happens in this movie? One kid kills himself, a teacher loses his job, and the system remains the same. Why does the kid shoot himself? Because he has a stock character of a dad that doesn't understand his son's desire to wear tights and spout poetry. What is a lad to do? Try and really stand up to dad? No. Try and talk to mom or another sympathetic ear that might be able to sway dad? No. Run away from home until dad realizes he made a mistake? No... wait, I got it: Blow your own skull off! And what about the lad's mentor? The teacher who dared to defy the system and take the fall? All the desk stomping and Shakespearean one-liners didn't save his job or reputation in the end. He leaves and the system wins again. So did anything really change in this movie? Doesn't really seem that way. A couple kids were more "enlightened" I guess. But how? Ethan Hawke, whom I presume is the protagonist, watches his one pal kill himself in an act of cowardly selfishness, and his star teacher get crushed by the bureaucracy.

This film was moving when I was in high school, but later viewings made me feel as if I'd been had. The film seemed to work for many people though. "Oh Captain, My Captain" was the equivalent of the filmmakers saying, "Cry, audience people! Cry!". It certainly is affective among the those "poor", "misunderstood" souls, as I felt when I was 14. Fortunately now, I know better.