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75And Pfeiffer gives a funny, scrappy performance that makes you feel a committed teacher's fire to make a difference.
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75Dangerous Minds doesn't drop the sentimental conventions of the good-teacher Hollywood drama but reconstitutes them with strong performances, sensitive direction by Canadian film maker John N. Smith ("The Boys of St. Vincent") and a firm belief that teachers can and will make a difference in a person's life.
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70Though it lacks the sensational pizzazz of "Blackboard Jungle", the politics here are arguably somewhat better, and the supporting cast -- George Dzundza, Courtney P. Vance, Robin Bartlett, Beatrice Winde -- isn't bad either.
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But the cut-to-the-enlightenment dramaturgy of Ronald Bass's screenplay feels desperate and false.
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50It's all quite inspiring, but despite the fact that this is based on someone's actual experiences, the whole thing has an unfortunate Hollywood ring to it.
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50Director John N. Smith, who helmed last year's masterly "The Boys of St. Vincent", is reduced to carrying Michelle Pfeiffer's baggage in this assembly-line star vehicle.
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50In the case of Dangerous Minds, we get an idealized version of inner city life, where, though problems may require more than the wave of a magic wand to remove, the solutions still seem too facile.
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50While films are admired for making fantasy real, some manage a reverse, unwanted kind of alchemy, turning involving reality into meaningless piffle.
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50Pfeiffer tackles the part with obvious dedication, but she's thwarted from the get-go by the heavily proscribed nature of the role as written.
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The sweet story turns stickygooey, however, as writer Ronald Bass sprinkles the script with saccharine lines that sound plain dumb coming from high schoolers.
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42Yet despite its promising pedigree, Dangerous Minds has a slick, syrupy fraudulence -- it's like an Afterschool Special made for MTV.
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40Pfeiffer's performance supersedes any of the material, but the rest of the film is a seething mass of clich's despite the "true story" origins.
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40False and condescending films in this genre are nothing new, but Dangerous Minds steamrollers its way over some real talent.
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40The film fleetingly touches on the underfunding of schools and other administrative problems as well as the more compelling personal issues of teen pregnancy and violence. But the characters are so poorly drawn and underdeveloped that they seem to be little more than personifications of these societal ills.
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38The 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.
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38Michelle Pfeiffer has made a lot of memorable movies, including many that undeservedly failed to connect with the public. Never, until Dangerous Minds, has she had to flail her way through a movie beyond all redemption, including even the prehistoric "Grease 2". [11 Aug 1995, Pg.04.D]
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As far as Pfeiffer's performance goes, she's got charm and pep to spare, but next to zero substance when it comes to exploring her character's particular hypocrisies and pretensions.
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25Movie stars have tamed sassy kids in movies from "The Blackboard Jungle" to "Stand and Deliver," but it's hard to remember an example more patronizing or sentimentalized than this one.
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