The Substitute
A mercenary named Shale (Tom Berenger (Major League)) is looking for a little r ‘n’ r after a botched
mission in Cuba. He heads to Miami where
his girlfriend (Diane Venora (Heat))
teaches at an inner city school. The
head honcho gangbanger in her class (Marc Anthony (Hackers, music shit)) doesn’t like her though and has her taken out
via a club to the leg. Shale decides to
fill in for her as the substitute only to find something more sinister going on
at the school.
Things are kinda convenient with this setup but that’s a
trademark of the series. Except for the
fourth one none of these stories would get rolling if it weren’t for many
layers of convenience. But anyway, let’s
see how these fine films shape up starting with the originale here.
What happens in this installment is pretty much what you
would think just by looking at the poster.
Shale genuinely wants to teach the class history but has to resort to
his military training to get them in line.
They talk back, bring weapons to class and some even try to kill him. Shale gets back by yelling, relating to the
students and, naturally, fighting a few.
This one was definitely trying to cash in on the hood craze
that was happening at the time. While a
bunch of the movie doesn’t actually take place in the hood it still deals with
hood lifestyle and shines a light on crumbling inner city schools. The message of how gang life isn’t glamorous
and is a one way ticket to the joint or an early grave is prevalent as well.
I wonder how much of an influence Dangerous Minds was on this.
It came out the year before and is similar in tone and shares the basic
premise of someone with military expertise teaching a tough streetwise high
school class. Dangerous Minds doesn’t involve a major drug ring using the school
as a storehouse though. So points to The Substitute.
It’s not real great but certainly satisfying. Shale may be a merc but he’s a merc with a
heart of gold and he kicks some ass to restore order in the troubled school. Plus it’s got William Forsythe (Firestorm) as, what else, a crazy s.o.b.
that forces Shale to fight a giant Samoan dude at gun point just to get even
for…uhh…Shale making fun of the size of his balls.
The Substitute 2: School’s Out
Two teenage thugs go to steal a poor lady’s car but a local
schoolteacher stumbles upon the situation and gets gunned down. That teacher’s brother is mercenary Karl
Thomasson (Treat Williams (Deep Rising))
and he wants to find out who the killers are.
In order to do that he has to go undercover as the substitute.
They changed the setting to New York City (looks like
Brooklyn or Queens) and decided to have this be a separate episode with
essentially no connection to the first (even though one of Karl’s team members
is supposed to be a leftover, but he’s not played by the same actor so why did
they bother?). But the story is pretty
close to the first where you have the convenience of a military guy stepping in
to settle a seemingly simple situation only to find out that a larger illegal
operation is functioning inside the high school. They also have some of the students realize
that they don’t have to be in a gang and etc.
Treat Williams is surprisingly believable as a tough as
nails bastard. I mean I think Berenger
was more believable with the weathered scared face and his build, but Williams
has this cold and intense way about him that can be effective. His wisecracks undercut any real threat
though and the end result is someone that could maybe beat the shit out of you
but you’re not really sure.
I actually like this one a little better than the
first. It’s not really any less cheesy
or any more well made. It’s sorta dumber
but in all the right ways. Like Karl
gets help from the school janitor who was also an ex Green Beret or something
and he gets around the school by crawling through the air vents. Or Karl and his crew get in a firefight in a
narrow hallway and it’s edited so that it looks like everyone is firing on each
other without cover yet no one gets hit.
But what might be the dumbest thing in here is that Karl doesn’t even
come close to finding out who his brother’s killer is. That discovery is accidental and then the
film abruptly wraps up. His final fight
isn’t with the killer either. It’s with BD
Wong (Oz, Jurassic Park) who runs the
chop shop out of the school. That shit
is completely unrelated to his brother’s death.
All of these bad decisions and sloppy storytelling make for
an entertaining experience. The inner
city stuff is there enough to get you your fix but that seems to be more beside
the point here. I would rank it second
best in the series. Sometimes if it’s
weird enough and dumb enough it can be a fun ride.
The Substitute 3: Winner Takes All
“This Substitute
is definitely the best in the series and gets the not-as-rare-as-you’d-think
honor of being a sequel that’s better than the original. Actually, come to think of it I thought The Substitute 2: School’s Out was also
better than the first one. Whatever,
Treat Williams (Deep Rising) pretends
to be a smug college professor because he’s returning a favor for a dead buddy
of his. But what the kids don’t know is
that he’s really a smug ex-soldier of some sort (I forget specifically what)
that’s there to bust a drug ring that involves the school’s football team.
The story is a great one and the football players are all
juiced up all the time so there’s plenty of confrontation (including in a pizza
parlor and a classroom). Everything
about this one just works real well and I highly recommend it. The good thing is that it’s pretty self
contained so don’t feel like you need to see the first two before tackling this
one. In fact I would suggest starting
with this one and if you like it then move on to the others.”
Sorry that wasn’t the most well written. I should’ve clarified that steroids are the
drugs involved. The only thing I would
add is the convenience once again of our merc knowing someone that’s having
troubles at the school where they work.
Which of course leads to a larger discovery of, in this case, steroids
and Mob influence.
Of all the Substitutes
this is the most ridiculous. From the
introduction of Karl’s sidekick (James Black (Soldier, The First 9 ½ Weeks)) practicing with his katana in the
glaring sun, to the high school bell that concludes a college class (?), to the
homoerotic workout montage, if you’re gonna see only one of these things this
is it.
The Substitute 4: Failure Is Not an Option
A military academy is being run by a fascist tyrant named
Brack (Patrick Kilpatrick (Class of 1999))
and he’s turning some of his cadets into vicious neo Nazis. One of the trainee’s under Brack’s spell is
the son of Karl’s old commandant. So Karl
is sent in as the substitute to see what’s what.
Part 4 is different from the rest of the series in a number
of ways. First, Karl isn’t nearly as
undercover as he usually is. Everyone
knows he’s an ex-military guy (Karl is supposed to be retired from killing
scumbags for money at this point) and he even uses his real name. What this really means is that the students
don’t mistake him for a naĆÆve outsider.
They know what he’s capable of.
Second, in the previous chapters Shale and Karl had to fight
gangbangers and the mob, all with the assumption that military training trumps
both of those types of bad guys. For
this one Karl and his crew go up against foes that share a similar background
and Karl has a noticeably tougher time dealing with them. He relies more than ever on other people to
help him defeat his enemies. In fact
Karl doesn’t even have a final confrontation with Brack. Instead the cadets intervene and finish him
off which is awfully disappointing.
Third, the end goal isn’t well defined. In part one Shale had to dismantle the drug
operation, in part two Karl was looking for his brother’s killer and in part
three Karl had to stop the steroid use and gangster stranglehold on the football
team. In part four Karl has to find out
if his old friend’s son has become a neo Nazi.
But what then? Is he supposed to
kill people and un-brainwash the son? Or
just collect info and report back? It’s
unclear.
There are a couple of moments when Karl goes out of
character too. The weirdest one is when Brack
dispatches his followers to blow up a local power plant. Karl stows away in the back of their truck so
he watches them set the bombs. But the
thing is he doesn’t do a damn thing about it.
This group of bad guys is only four or five strong so Karl shouldn’t
have too much trouble taking them out and disarming the explosives. But he doesn’t make any effort to sabotage
the mission or even warn the workers in the plant that it’s going to blow. He just looks around for a minute and then
hides in the back of the truck again.
What the fuck? It’s completely
bizarre that he would fail to act in any capacity on this situation.
It’s sad that they ended the series on the worst
installment. Maybe it’s me but I feel
like part of it is that a military academy isn’t the best setting. Child’s
Play 3 and Major Payne I think
are two arguments for that. By the way these
aren’t the same as boot camp movies like Full
Metal Jacket and Tigerland which
are fucking awesome.
It doesn’t have that heart of gold like the first one, the
dumbness of the second or the inexplicable oddness of the third. They didn’t go far enough in any particular
direction which makes part four kinda bland.
Ironically failure is the option they ultimately went with.
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