Could there be some bizarre psychic connection between directors Reynolds and Michael Cimino? Consider this: Cimino’s 1980 debacle Heaven’s Gate nearly bankrupted United Artists and Reynold’s 1995 monstrosity Waterworld nearly did the same for Universal. And now Reynolds prominently features scenes from Cimino’s earlier Vietnam epic The Deer Hunter in this muddled, unengaging look at embattled public school teachers in the `hood. Coincidence? I think not. Whether or not Reynolds carries some sort of cinematic death wish is anyone’s guess at this point, but the odds are leaning more and more toward that assumption. Regardless, 187 is a morally baffling film that teeters on the edge of inanity; despite the film’s well-chosen trip-hop soundtrack, it’s all more fatuous than phat. Jackson plays Trevor Garfield, a high school teacher in Bed-Stuy who opts for a brief time-out after a disgruntled student guts his backside with a homemade shiv. Fifteen months later, Garfield relocates to South Central Los Angeles (!) and accepts a substitute teaching position amid yet another scholastic war zone. Why he doesn’t just put in for early retirement is anyone’s guess, but this crusading educator apparently feels the need to prove he’s tougher than the thugs and gangbangers he has been assigned to instruct. He’s not, of course, and his new position brings him into contact with teenage creeps and cretins possessing minds more dangerous than even Michelle Pfeiffer could handle. One edgy event leads to another, and before long Garfield finds himself trapped between an ineffectual bureaucaracy unwilling to help for fear of lawsuits and the knife- and gun-wielding hooligans that make up the better part of his increasingly ruinous classroom. Taking a cue from Charles Bronson in Death Wish, Garfield fights back against the gangsters, leaving his co-workers to wonder just what the hell his definition of corporal punishment is. Acually, that’s pretty much the audience’s reaction, too. Screenwriter Scott Yagemann’s script (this is his first feature script — previous credits include writing for television’s Love Connection and Jeopardy) struggles to milk some social relevance out of what is essentially a highbrow reworking of the schlock hit Class of 1999, but it’s all for naught. 187 (the title refers to copspeak for a homicide) circles round and round, never making a salient point that isn’t countered by another, utterly opposite notion three scenes later. Should teachers fight back? Should students chill the hell out? Should Kevin Reynolds quit wasting precious film stock and take up a career in pool maintenance? This may be a multiple choice review, but face it, that last one’s a freebie.
This article appears in August 8 • 1997 (Cover).