Lean On Me (1989)

Such a frustrating disappointment

i must have seen a different film!!

As Good As It Gets

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

"This is an institution of learning, ladies and gentlemen. If you can't control it, how can you teach? Discipline is not the enemy of enthusiasm!" In the 1980s, Joe Louis Clark became the new principal of Eastside High School, located in Paterson, New Jersey, which was one of New Jersey's toughest inner city schools. He managed to turn the school around, despite the people who criticized him and tried to stop him. It's no wonder that a few years later, in 1989, a film version of his story was released. The film, which stars one of the best actors alive, Morgan Freeman, managed to gross 3x it's budget and became a big success due to it's storyline and characters. How does the film hold up twenty-six years later? Lean On Me follows a former teacher at Eastside High School who comes back twenty years later as the Principal, and finds that the school is in need of dire help in order to keep the state from gaining control of the school.I first heard about this film due to my mother, who watched it several times when I was younger, and that was how I remember scenes like the ending and the song, Lean On Me. So, when I saw the film was going to be on for the last time for a while, I recorded it and sat down to watch. Man, this is a pretty good film.The acting is phenomenal, most notably from Morgan Freeman. I have no idea how Freeman didn't get nominated for Best Actor for his role as Joe Clark, because he does a fantastic job, what with all the speeches and the powerful scenes he has to carry. Beverly Todd does a great job as Mrs. Levias, and the best scene she does is one toward the end of the film, fighting against Morgan Freeman's character about what he's supposed to be doing with the kids at the school.Alan North does a fine job as the Mayor. Robert Guillaume does a phenomenal job as well as Dr. Napier, and his best scene comes about midway through the film when he and Clark argue about Clark's methods of controlling his students. Lynne Thigpen does a deliciously evil job as Mrs. Barnett, a parent who doesn't agree with Clark from the beginning and does her best to get him fired.The music in the film was great. The instrumental music, composed by Bill Conti, was fantastic and fit all the songs they were used in. The other songs, which were songs like Welcome to the Jungle and of course, the titular song, Lean On Me, all worked very well. The cinematography, and set design, especially in the shots of the rundown Eastside High all look very convincing and the school looks even better when it's redone.The script was very riveting and was great at really portraying how these kids acted and how Mr. Clark was going to deal with them. It was all very refreshing, a script that really showed the reality of these kids and didn't just demonize them or praise them to make things more dramatic or interesting. Perhaps my only issue with the film is that the whole film feels very brutal, never really slowing enough to let some of the more emotional moments sink in.Overall, Lean On Me is a fantastic film. While I did have some issues with the overall brutal feel of the film, the acting, music, cinematography, set design and script are all fantastic and work about as well as they could have in this setting. I'm honestly shocked Morgan Freeman didn't get an Oscar nod for his revolutionary performance here. If you haven't seen it, go see it if only for the amazing performances that definitely should have received some Oscar nods.9/10. | Grade: A-

Lean On Me is a film loosely based on the story of Joe Louis Clark,an educator known for his unorthodox means,who was assigned to become high school principal of Eastside High School.He was given the impossible task of reforming the school as it is at the risk of being overtaken by the state government.It stars Morgan Freeman,who portrays Clark,in his ascent to stardom.John G.Avildsen,who is known for underdog films in movies such as The Karate Kid and Rocky,is the director of the movie.Back in 1987,Joe Louis Clark was assigned to become the principal of Eastside High School,the worst known school in the state that is located at Paterson,New Jersey.The students have done poorly at the state test of minimum basic skills since their average scores hovers around 33% - way below the 75% minimum passing rate.The students have been known to be using drugs and involved with gang violence.When he arrives at the school,the radical Clark reprimands the entire faculty for their inability to control the students and their failure to do their job.Then,he dismisses hundreds of students that are identified as drug dealers and abusers as well as troublemakers.Despite his tyrannical approach and hard-line policies that he implemented that caused a lot of tension and alienation from his fellow faculty members and parents of the students,Clark was able to achieve results as he was able to straighten out Eastside High School later in time and he was able get the school's basic-skills test scores up.This led him to have the the job at the institution permanently. Although his tyrannical approach and hard-line policies alienate many members of the staff and the community, his uncompromising campaign gets results.This make him popular to the dismay of his critics and powerful enemies.Morgan Freeman provided a great portrayal as Joe Louis Clark that the viewer of the movie would somehow overcome the film's flaws such as predictability and having a formulaic screenplay.Aside from that,it was also cheesy.Although the viewer knows that that Clark will be able to achieve the impossible task of reforming Eastside despite his unorthodox methods and the tensions that were created by the people - students and faculty members - in the school,one will definitely enjoy and get entertained by his interesting peroformance.I could have given this film a rating of 8 BUT Freeman was simply excellent and remarkable that the viewer will definitely care more about his character as well as the actions he has taken instead of the flaws of the film as a whole.

Based on the true story of Joe Clark, 'Lean on Me' features Morgan Freeman as the controversial teacher tasked with recovering Eastside High, a decaying school that has become a den of violence, drug abuse and all-around despair. While inspirational teacher dramas are nothing new ('To Sir, with Love' comes right to mind, as well as that same year's 'Dead Poets Society'), 'Lean on Me' is uncommon in how the teacher is depicted. True to the real-life Joe Clark, Freeman portrays a tough, quasi- tyrannical teacher that is not afraid of taking extreme measures to keep (or instate) the discipline in the school. There is no idealistic, fantasy-esque 'talk settles everything' development here; Clark is brutally realistic in his views of the school's problems and is not afraid of answering in the same way rather than smooth-talking and merely 'putting his faith on the goodness of the delinquents'.Another good anti-cliché is that the other teachers are not exempt from this. Most school dramas seem to base themselves on the premise that 'everyone is a genius, they just need to be listened to'; in other words, if you teach discipline to the students or give them support them they will automatically ace all tests/recover their grades as if on a miracle. 'Lean on Me' shows that bettering the behavior is a step on the right direction, but is not everything; Clark demands from the professors the same hard-work, dedication and discipline he does from the students.After all, how can you help them if you don't lead by example?This screenplay is not perfect though: the ending seems to flirt with the idealistic feel of other school dramas, and there seems to be plot contrivances. The supporting characters are mostly underdeveloped, and small subplots brought up here and there are either barely touched upon or made irrelevant in light of the focus on Clark's story. It doesn't help, or maybe it does, that Morgan Freeman gives one of his best performances and outshines everyone and everything in here, making these subplots easy to forget.All in all, a remarkable drama with one of the best Morgan Freeman performances I've ever seem. A great watch, and a refreshment for the 'teacher drama subgenre'. Now, if only more real teachers would not be afraid to act out like him...

Joe Clark is a poor choice for a movie hero, assuming this biography is at all accurate. Professionally, he should not have been in charge of anything or anyone, and I find it hard to believe that the school improved under his leadership as depicted. What the students needed most in this school was a sense that they create their own community and have to live in it. They got a charismatic fanatic, whose authority is arbitrary and capricious--everything in the school was about Joe Clark and nothing else. Perhaps I just mistrust/dislike hero stories, but learning this kind of devotion to an individual is not a substitute for learning to participate in a community.