Karry Best movie of this year hands down!

Aiden Melton The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

Marva It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Fleur Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

FlashCallahan When a school has less-than-average basic skills test scores, it faces being taken over by the state. So the mayor asks the school superintendent for help, and he suggests that they appoint Joe Clark as the school principal.When he arrives, he shakes things up by reassigning teachers and calling out their flaws.But it isn't long before a lot of people want him out, but at the same time, he gains the respect of some of the teachers and the students....Lean on me is one of a slew of high school gone bad films that graced cinemas in the late eighties and nineties. Films like Dangerous Minds and Stand and Deliver spring to mind, and although this is a tour de force for Freeman, it carries the usual tropes that this sub genre gets weighed down by.We have all the atypical bad students expelled, and there is always one promising that they will get their revenge, and then you have the other one who begs to come back, and makes good.Then you have the teachers who are against him, and so they get their just desserts when the narrative calls for it.And then finally, we have the student who's known Freeman for years, he say's see if you ever have a problem, and guess what? Half way through the second act, something happens where only Freeman can help.Although the film spoon feeds you all these tropes, it's worth seeing just for Freeman's wonderful performance. This is why he's in every other film that is released.It's one of the better high school films, is ably directed, and the script is gritty enough to keep you hooked.

g-bodyl Lean on Me is certainly a film that gives an exaggerated version of tough love. It's a film about a high school principal who is dedicated for his students, but in the process, uses dictatorial powers to show his dedication. But this is a powerful film that shows a transformation from a school looking like a gang center to a school with high education results. There are not many films like these being made, so it's a treat seeing an inspirational film like this. The film itself may be a little outdated, but the messages still ring true even in today's world.John G Avildsen, known for his famous film Rocky, directs a film based on the true happenings of the East Paterson High School in New Jersey. Principal Joe Clark is brought in to save a school from completely collapsing. He expels the drug dealers and troublemakers and he chains the doors shut to keep the learners inside and the troublemakers outside....much to the disarray of the community.The acting is very good here. Morgan Freeman is one of the greatest actors Hollywood has ever had. This movie came out at a time before Freeman had his juicy roles, but this performance here is still top-notch. I may not agree with all the tactics Clark used to whip his school into shape, but Freeman does an excellent job in showing what a no-nonsense man Joe Clark was.Overall, Lean on Me is a very powerful film and is essentially a version of the old rags-to-rich tale, but here it's more of a dumb-to-smart tale. Led by a majestic performance by Morgan Freeman, this film is a must-see. Joe Clark was a stern man, but his sternness created glory for his school not seen in many years. "Lean on Me, when you're not strong. I'll be your pillow," as sung by the great Bill Withers in his classic song. I rate this film 9/10.

disinterested_spectator When the movie starts, we see Joe Clark teaching class at Eastside High School in 1967. His students are intelligent, well-groomed, and well-behaved. He quits because the teachers' union has sold out to the school board or something vague like that. Twenty years later, the school has become so bad it makes the one in "Blackboard Jungle" (1955) look like the Blackboard Tropical Rainforest. The students are the meanest, most vicious bunch of high-school hoodlums ever displayed on the big screen.Oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention one more difference: all the clean-cut, intelligent students in the school in 1967 are white; most of the students in the school twenty years later are African American, with some Latinos, and a mere handful of whites. When I first saw this, I wondered if the movie had been produced by the Ku Klux Klan, because it comes across as a racist's worst nightmare. But, since the story is true, I guess those were the facts, and they just went with it. When Clark is asked to become the principal to help improve the students' test scores, I wondered how he could possibly do anything with them. Well, I don't want to take anything away from Clark, but not only does he have a bunch of security guards with him when he arrives, but on the second day, he also expels a whole bunch of students. Anybody could straighten out a school with dictatorial powers like that. Think how much Glenn Ford could have accomplished in "Blackboard Jungle" if he could have expelled Vic Morrow on the second day of class. Of course he succeeds with the remainder of the students, and all is well.Toward the end, a girl tells him she is pregnant. We never find out what she did about it. That way those who are pro-life can imagine her keeping the baby, and those who are pro-choice can imagine her having an abortion. Very clever, Hollywood.

D_Burke Morgan Freeman's performance, as Principal Joe Clark, is hands down the best thing about "Lean On Me". It could even be considered today to be one of Freeman's Top 5 most iconic performances, easily ranking alongside "The Shawshank Redemption" (1994), "Se7en" (1995), and "Million Dollar Baby" (2004).Freeman effectively displays a take-charge attitude with his performance that the real life Joe Clark most likely had when he took over the real Eastside High School in Patterson, New Jersey. His best scene is when he first addresses the Eastside students in the auditorium, and swiftly expels the repeat troublemakers indefinitely. Following his rousing speech, one student, Kaneesha Carter (Karen Malina White), remarks, "Mr. Clark don't play!" You really can't disagree.The beginning of the movie shows the thriving educational institution Eastside High School was in the late 1960's, when Joe Clark first taught there. 20 years later, the promising early days of Eastside were long gone, as the school gradually decayed into a dangerous, run-down inner city public school.The first 20 minutes of "Lean On Me" shows what still ranks as one of the most intense and (somehow) least exploitative depictions of a typical day in a bad inner city public school. Guns N Roses' classic "Welcome To The Jungle" is the most fitting song. It may not be fun and games, but it's enough to bring you to your kneesHallways fights occur daily, drug dealers frequently visit, and bars cover the windows. Even a young kid getting trapped in his locker only results in a custodian shaking his head in apathy. Just like "A Tale of Two Cities", where French peasants are drinking wine off the Paris streets, things are bad!Much to the reluctance of Patterson Mayor Don Bottman (Alan North), Dr. Frank Napier (Robert Guillaume) convinces Joe Clark to take over as principal of Eastside High, and attempt to restore its former glory. Clark, who was fired from the school 20 years ago due to budget cuts, reluctantly agrees. However, Clark takes charge in a way Dr. Napier never expected.Mr. Clark's unorthodox methods of discipline are probably still the subject of hot debate. Was his expelling the troublemakers on his first day the right thing to do? I think so, especially given the opening credits. However, a number of angry parents, especially Leonna Barrett (Lynne Thigpen), think otherwise.Lynne Thigpen was a great actress, and she did well in her role here as a community member who is against Mr. Clark from the start. However, her character lacked definition. We know she's a parent of someone who attended Eastside High, but we never see her child. It's implied that her child was expelled, but she seems way too dedicated a community member to let her child fall through the cracks.Most importantly, her character seems completely unaware of the mess that Eastside High was before Mr. Clark became principal. Was she ever in the high school, let alone when a fight occurred? Thigpen did what she could with the character, but Ms. Barrett needed to be more established.Similarly, all the teachers we see appear more dedicated than Mr. Clark gives them credit for being. That's not a bad thing, but we never see any inept or corrupt teachers. We just see Mr. Clark unjustly fire music teacher Mrs. Elliot (Robin Bartlett), and even more unreasonably suspend Mr. Darnell (Michael Beach), the latter of whom Dr. Napier even describes as "a good, strong young Black teacher".Did Mr. Clark fire teachers like them in real life? I don't know, but he may have. However, the real Eastside High must have had corrupt teachers who took part in the drug trade, had sex with students, or did similarly inappropriate and illegal things. These kinds of behaviors do happen in high schools across America, especially decaying inner-city public schools. The latter schools just have more tolerance for it.When you see Mr. Clark immediately fire a good teacher for not teaching students the school song, it makes him out to be a bully. If you saw him throwing a teacher out of school for selling drugs, that action would be more justifiable, and the audience would be better able to sympathize with him.Then there's the case of putting locks and chains on the doors. Mr. Clark orders the school security guards to do this after an altercation with a suspended student who came back into school with a knife in his hand. This order gets Mr. Clark in trouble with both the mayor and Fire Chief Gaines (John Ring), who correctly declare the action a fire hazard.You can understand Mr. Clark's motivation for putting on the chains: there are dangerous people outside, and one of their friends can just push open the doors and let them in. Plus, the school doesn't have the budget for doors that unlock automatically in case of emergency. On the other hand, the Fire Chief has a point too. This conflict is probably what got the real Mr. Clark in trouble, and you can tell because it's very complicated. There are easy solutions to this problem, but like many problems in America's educational system, they are not attainable ones.There is a lot "Lean On Me" does right, beginning with casting Morgan Freeman and Robert Guillaume. It's also inspiring to see the students who stay in Eastside High School warm up to Mr. Clark, and appreciate his disciplinary actions as "tough love".However, the antagonists in this movie caused the most inconsistency, seemingly not even acknowledging a lot of the good Mr. Clark did, which unquestionably outweighed the bad. If these characters actually stepped out of the movie and watched the opening credit sequence, they may have changed their minds. Then again, Mr. Clark seemed to be the only character who saw the big picture. It's hard to say.