Seize your day and watch this movie

Rating: 8/10 (31 August 2016)

From Director Peter Weir (The Truman Show) and screenwriter Tom Schulman (Honey, I shrunk the kids) introducing this classical school melodrama set in the world of "America's best preparatory school" Wilton Academy where the students bearing names like "Pitts" and "Meeks" (you couldn't find whiter names?) are introduced to their new English professor John Keating (Robin Williams) who comes bearing his informal and contemporary teaching methods making him appeal to his new students immediately.
The movie-set in 1959-follows the theme of challenging the conservative, conventional style of life and encouraging a new free thinking style presented by the character of prof. Keating, who, to be honest, didn't take much time getting into the heads of a group of white nerdy boys who do study groups in their first day of school, really lads? Anywho, professor Keating, who keeps constantly quoting Whitman, Herrick, and Tennyson, introduces the boys into the "cute" world of poetry in a very dynamic and playful acting much as the actor himself, losing himself into his theatrical persona where he reads Shakespeare sonnets impersonating Marlon Brando from the godfather (uhmm somebody needs to tell Robin that the godfather deputed 19 years after the time of the movie) but regardless of his outstanding performance as the quick witted, fast paced professor, I'm afraid that Robin Willam's character does not fit as a protagonist of this film rather than the tool that helped the plot move, the character wasn't anything more than a very well crafted plot device in this movie.
The main conflict we see in this movie is between a young Robert Sean Leonard playing the role of Neil, a smart student who dreams of becoming an actor, and his hardheaded strict father who denies him his wishes in fear of it disturbing his education (probably the only white boys in the US who cannot defy their parents) a conflict which ends up in a most tragic way.
The dead poets society is a secret society founded by an intellectual equivalent of a 98 Pound weakling teenage version of professor John Keating himself, and reincarnated by his young students who get immediately attracted to the idea of poetry under the influence of their charismatic teacher, the reincarnated form though, seems to be completely purposeless (well asides from meeting in a cave in the night, wooing chicks with other poets lines and dancing to Vanche Lindsay's "The Congo" (one of the poems that critics debate it's racist content which is ironic in an all white cast movie).
The movie's cast including Robin Willams, Robert S. Leonard, and Ethan Hawke did a great job portraying their roles and quite frankly hiding the many flaws in a movie that has not one, not two but three scenes with birds flying off in one sequence (maybe Peter Weir is trying to compensate for the lack of "birds" in the all boys school?) but all in all the movie is quite enjoyable, entertaining and indeed, worthwhile.