Reviews (17) 
"The Substitute" Review
Tom Berenger is the head of a top-secret team of mercernaries, who decides to infiltrate a Miami high school after his girlfriend is beaten up, Nancy Kerrigan style, by one of the students. As it turns out, the school is being run by drug dealers and gang goons who answer to the principal, a former cop who runs a high-grade drug lab out of the basement in the gym. Any movie with Ernie Hudson as an evil high school principal, a wacked-out William Forsythe, and Latin singer Marc Anthony as the juvenile leader of a gang creatively titled the "Kings Of Destruction" can't be all bad, can it? Think of it as "Dangerous Minds" written for Steven Seagal.
A Guilty Pleasure
Those of us who teach for a living enjoy a guilty pleasure in "The Substitute." While we'd never dream of ever harming any of our students--well, at least I'd never dream of it--the catharsis from a fiction about a good guy mercenary cleaning house of all the bad influences in an urban high school--violent punks, drug lowlifes and sociopath gangbangers and the evil adults who indulge their self-destruction--is just too wonderful to pass up. Tom Berenger eschews the angry racist persona he brought to life so ably in "Platoon" for a different man of action, in this case, Shales, a professional soldier with a heart and a brain. Besieged and assaulted by teenybopper thugs who work for the local drug kingpin, his teacher girlfriend turns to the only man who might be able to stop them, forcing Shales to go undercover as a substitute teacher to root out the source of the problems. While the script is fantasy and has very little to do with teaching, and the production values are on the "B" side, the able cast--including Ernie Hudson, William Forsythe, Richard Brooks, and many other familiar faces--plays it with just the right amount of humor and zeal. Director Robert Mandel infuses the production with a pace and wit that has helped other low-budget productions make it to cult status (think "Alligator"), and "The Substitute" deserves an audience. If you teach, put this one on your shelf for those days when you feel like you could use a mercenary to put some order back into the classroom for you!
Awesome
Nothing beats a teacher putting a bunch of wannabe tough guys in there place and making it look easy. Starts out with a former mercanary/marines girlfriend being assaulted by a gang from a local high school she teaches at. Completely fed up, Shale decides to take the matter into his own hands and fakes some credentials and becomes a sub at her high school. Highly recommended. You'll find yourself rooting for Shale the whole way.
let me tell you
the only reason i saw this movie cause it was filmed at my high school miami senior high.i wasnt going there at the time but my sister was. so i saw it and didnt like it much but it was cool to see the school on film and know ive been there millions of times. p.s the school is not all f**ked up like they showed it they spray painted it and messed it up for filming.
THIS IS THE BEST MOVIE TOM BERENGER HAS EVER BEEN IN
A TOUGH MERCENARY [TOM BERENGER] BECOMES A SUBSTITUTE TEACHER FOR A CRIME INFESTED SCHOOL. VERY INTERESTING. THIS IS PROBABLY AS GOOD AS A TOM BERENGER MOVIE IS GONNA GET. BELIEVE IT OR NOT, MARC ANTHONY [WHO'S BEST REMEMBERED FOR 1998'S ''I NEED TO KNOW''] ACTUALLY HAS A ROLE IN THIS MOVIE AS A GANG LEADER. THIS IS DEFINITELY WORTH WATCHING. FOLLOWED BY THREE DIRECT-TO-VIDEO SEQUELS.
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