Dangerous Minds

There was nothing wrong with the entertainment value of Dangerous Minds, but it was as if one had seen it all before - just without Michelle Pfeiffer. She plays the newly qualified teacher LouAnne Johnson, who immediately gets a job at a high school. What she is not told is that the class she is to teach is utterly impossible. The class's last teacher, for example, was bullied out. On LouAnne's first day of teaching the situation does not look particularly bright either, but she is not so easily knocked out. What the pupils do not know is that the nice, well-meaning LouAnne is a trained marine! That cannot fail to command respect, but it is first and foremost LouAnne's alternative teaching methods that transform the rough thugs and cheeky girls into interested pupils keen to break away from their harsh environment.

Michelle Pheiffer is not entirely credible as an ex-marine. Here one could well have used an actress with a slightly more masculine aura, whether mentally or physically. Pheiffer's co-stars are not entirely credible either. That is because several of them are undoubtedly more than twice as old as the high-school pupils they are supposed to play. Is it so they will seem more intimidating?