The 80s is riddled with hit action films that perhaps didn't do so well with the critics but certainly captured the attention of the average moviegoer. The Arnold era of intense silly action and explosions which led to an entire genre within two decades growing to such an inflated level that it inevitably collapsed in on itself at the turn of the century. With the new milenium, the action genre completely changed. For many actors and directors, this change was one that left them behind, to which they never truly recovered and faded off into obscurity as the decades went by. I suspect you have no idea as to who Mark L. Lester is. I wouldn't blame you. Though this is a director that once worked alongside the greats in throwing out action epics like Showdown in Little Tokyo, and Commando. I stumbled across Class of 1984 the other night, to which the first thing to capture my attention was the poster. Followed by reading up on how disliked the film is despite not having particularly bad review scores. It seems that the modern audiences find political reasons to dislike the film, which I must admit made me more interested in checking it out. At first I felt like the film wasn't quite pulling me in, it felt a bit strange at first. This is a film that is almost a psychological horror. One that pushes a few tropes and really exaggerates with them to promote an eerie, suspenseful atmosphere. And to some degree, it's almost a revenge film.
In the title I mentioned that this is almost like watching a version of The Warriors that takes place mostly within a high school setting. And Is still stick by that assumption with how it displays an exaggerated 80s series of sub cultures of various punk nature. In this instance it's really fun, it shows a lawless 80s city setting in which everything is all gritty and dark. One surprise to me was to see an incredibly young Michael Fox performance, before the actor went on to act within the massive franchise Back to the Future. I really didn't expect that! Class of 1984 was supposedly birthed with the director having read of a similar story in the news, of how a series of students had sent a teacher to the point of near insanity. With that, the film carries itself with the statement that it is loosely based on a series of real events. To some degree it's rather believable, it's not a film that goes too crazy and unrealistic. And much of the film really is a build-up of tension between utter horrors of students and a more established teacher that just arrived at the school, completely surprised at the state of things there. It really has the bleakness of the 80s, that turn of the decade where films started to take themselves a bit more seriously and tell more depressing stories, something that really started to appear in the 70s as economic decay really hit in certain states of the US. Another thing that really cements the film within time is how it appears that many of its cast never really continued to act beyond the 90s.
I doubt anyone is going to watch this film, but there may be the odd spoiler regarding the narrative from here on. Read on at your own discretion.
The film starts off with a new teacher arriving at a high school for his first day of work. He's a fairly decent teacher based on his initial interactions with the students, one that sees that there is creativity and potential in much of the students, though he soon notices that there is something off with the school: a large sum of the students are total hooligans. They go beyond just being some general troublemakers, and spans into the realm of crime syndicate with them operating a drug empire, prostitution, and even dish out violence to those who get in their way. In a realistic situation these teenagers would've been dealt with a legal manner long ago, but for some odd reason in this high school it seems as if the teachers and the rest of the faculty tend to either turn a blind eye or just generally fear any outcome from dealing with them. Our protagonist is a regular family man with a child on the way, so it sets itself up with a character that has plenty to lose but also plenty to fight for. A man that refuses to let these people get away with what they do. The tension rises with the ways in which the students and the teacher interact through each day, how some are fine and exceeding potential, but others continue to test their patience and constantly encroach.
Things take a larger turn for the worst though once the drug side of things starts to show its presence, a friend of the young Michael Fox's character is stupid enough to take something in the bathroom, to which all of them deny it once confronted. A character that's drugged up then proceeds to climb the flag pole of the school to which he falls and dies. This is about when the film starts to get a bit more serious, when things start to show a clearer path of no return. As the teacher then proceeds to really take matters into his own hands; especially give nothing comes from this. He's told he needs to catch the students in the act for there to be any case against them. The story is a bit thin in this regard where things don't logically make sense, it does seem like everyone's making excuses and covering for the actions of those students to which it does give the assumption that a lot of this is part of some deeper web of corruption. Though it's not that smart of a film to pull off something like that, it really is just a bit of a plot flaw. It does keep the frustration forward though, which does lead to a more serious series of events between the characters as physical clashing starts to unfold. I do think some of this was done well in that regard.
By no means is this a more realistic and serious narrative, everything is certainly more exaggerated, even down to the presentation of various sub cultures as teens dress to suit certain groups they're in. The bad students have a really stereotypical punk aesthetic to them in which they wear torn clothing and have coloured hair, the very epitome of what was considered a hooligan back then. All black and spikes on the clothing, that sort of thing. In terms of fashion and stereotypes, I quiet liked this side of the film. There certainly isn't such a play on that sub culture side of the world so much these days. And it definitely did contribute to the distancing of the good students and the bad ones, making it evident which ones are the ones causing the trouble. Rather than the bad students simply looking like a few poorly behaving kids, and instead showing them more as these utter monsters to which only violence can lead to peace. And that ultimately is what happens, as the clashing goes on. I wouldn't say this is a good film, nor is it one I think most would enjoy, but it's made in a way that certainly speaks of the 80s setting and filmmaking style.
Mark L. Lester didn't do a bad job at all, but it's also clear that in the present there just isn't much of a demand for that cheaper style of filmmaking anymore. He was made for a different era, and that's really why he dropped off.
I liked the strong personality of this post! very good summary, greetings!
Thank you! :)
se ve interesante, buen post!
looks interesting, good post!