Class of 1984

Perry King (The Day After Tomorrow, Slaughterhouse-Five) is the new music teacher, Andrew Norris.  He’s all optimistic about making the student’s lives richer and being a figure they can look up to.  But this is an inner city school where every surface has graffiti on it, the teachers carry guns and the students run amok.  You know, you’re typical badass shit that you find in one of these movies.

The leader of the main gang is Stegman (Timothy Van Patten (director/executive producer of Boardwalk Empire)).  He’s got the right attitude but doesn’t have a tough look.  His hair is coiffed nicely, his clothes aren’t dirty or battered, he’s not particularly tall nor does he have a cool nickname like Razor or some shit.  It’s a hard sell but after a while I was on board.  Stegman’s a pretty crazy sonuvabitch and I like that. 

His operation actually seems too big just for a high school kid but I feel like that helped to make up for his lame appearance (as well as make this film more entertaining).  The guy deals coke and angel dust, which is standard for this scenario, but he also has some sort of prostitution ring going.  Plus there’s a hideout where he and his gang do business.  Why these people bother with high school I have no idea.  With this full blown racket you have to assume that they control a certain amount of territory which means all of their time is going to be taken up by maintaining and defending their drug and prostitution ventures.  In fact there’s a part where Stegman’s all white gang fights a rival black gang.  But the black gang looks like they’re high school kids too.  So it’s a little weird that there aren’t any other older and tougher gangs trying to muscle Stegman and his crew.

For a long time I thought these kids didn’t have homes with shitty families which would’ve backed up my why-do-they-still-go-to-high-school argument.  But we do end up seeing Stegman’s nice apartment with his mother that thinks he’s an angel.  His is the only one we get though.  So at least Stegman has to keep up appearances.  I still say that with the level this kid is operating on it doesn’t make a lot of sense for him to pretend to go to school.

One of the best scenes is when Roddy McDowall (Planet of the Apes, Fright Night) pulls a gun on his class.  He forces them to sit there while he teaches and then sticks his piece right in a couple of kids’ faces while he asks them biology questions.  They better get the answer right.  It’s supposed to be sad and disturbing because McDowall has snapped and the kids are in danger but with all the hell that these students have put the teachers through it comes off more as a very badass and triumphant moment; like finally someone put these little fuckers in their place.

The same could be said for the ending.  I really don’t want to spoil it but I also really want to tell you how awesome it is.  I guess I should let you folks find out for yourselves.  I promise you’ll like the direction they chose.   

I feel like I should mention that Michael J. Fox has a part in this with a bad haircut and a chubby face.  He plays one of the good kids though.  It would’ve been interesting to see him as a gang member.  I seriously doubt he could’ve pulled it off but I would’ve liked to have seen it anyway. 

With the title you would think that this is some sort of futuristic movie about how shitty inner city schools will get.  And I think that was sort of the intent but this came out in 1982.  It’s more of a comment on how some inner city schools are currently.  This means it should be more in line with pictures like Dangerous Minds and Stand and Deliver (there’s a big but though) BUT the ending goes against everything you think should happen and against the message those other movies are trying to convey.

Mark L. Lester’s follow up, Class of 1999, reverses the situation where the teachers are the threat (because they’re cyborgs!) and the students have to fight for their lives.  I remember it being better than Class of 1984 but they’re both worth checking out, especially if you’re an educator.