The best corny movie i've ever seen. I wanted corny though, so I highly enjoyed it. The cast is all amazing, including Swank. The only drawback is that I am getting my B.Ed and this movie made me feel a tad inept.

A

The movie starts out on an excellent note, showing the turmoil after the LA riots involved with Rodney King. When Swank's optimistic, bright eyed teacher shows up to this school you have no idea how she's going to get all these kids to really care. ANd herein lies the problem: She doesn't, not believably anyways. The jump from snarling rebels to drooling fans happens far too quickly, especially considering their surroundings. I really liked how learning about the Holocaust helped bring them together, but that's about where the movie really starts to drop off in quality. As each scene progresses the movie sinks deeper and deeper into ridiculous levels of cheese. Who knows, maybe this whole class really did love this teacher enough to want to hang out in her room and all dance simultaneously night after night. But the movie certainly doesn't do a good enough job showing that transition. It doesn't help that it's hard not to snicker when these actors say they're 14 or 15 - some of them look older then Swank is supposed to be. One last act plot turn, if not somewhat predictable, at least breaks the standqard structure of these films. But by then it has been about two dozen inspirational moments too many and the movie had lost me. I wouldn't have been dissapointed if it weren't for such a strong start. C

I enjoyed how there wasn't the traditional student backlash to the teacher (well the character played by Mario kind of went against her), but i liked how this wasn't very prevalent, only because it strengthened the message that when people are subjected to an environment that is not condusive to racism, or is just an environmen where all are accepted, that they want to hold on to it. Their entire environment outside the classroom was shrowded in turmoil/hatred and by not having the students revert back to old ways in the classroom gives the message that we as humans crave and desire these peaceful situations when given the opportunity or the means to.

I didn't want them to start bickering at her - I just didn't feel like their transition was that believable, and that wasn't helped by running a good 20-30 minutes too long and having scene after scene of cheesy inspirational dialogue that just grew tiresome after awhile.

The year's best film so far. Hilary Swank delivers a fantastic performance.

8/10 (A-)

eh. it was ok. C

eh. it was ok. C

Versus what exactly?

Alpha Dog (which was also great, though) and Starter For 10

Agreed with MovieDude. I also felt that the transition from "rebel kids" to "freedom writers" happened a little too quickly and without much detail. It's a long film, a lot of time wasted on less important things. I think a good 15 minutes could have been cut out and they could have gone into more detail about how these kids transformed. And also, I kinda wanted to see more about how they acted around their friends and family. Eva's character was covered here with the court case and how her gang reacted, but no one else, really. That said, I liked it. It's as cheesy as you'd expect, but also a little different from your traditional inspirational flick (mostly because all I can think of are sports ones). Great, great performance by Hilary Swank. The film isn't *great* or anything, but I enjoyed it for what it was, and it could have been great without that major, major flaw. B-

I really liked this movie a lot. I don't know if being a teacher helped in my enjoyment, but I thought it was easily one of the stronger entries into the "inspirational teacher" subgenre. An energetic Hilary Swank is very good here, and there are numerous solid supporting performances. Very solid. B+

Its for sure a very generic movie but its still a GREAT film. Hilary Swank is excellent in this one.

B+

Cheesy as hell, but I liked it.

B-