Review by M.G. Wood

Why must we fear the “wrath” of yet another spoiled anesthetized idiot child shooting up a school when it’s clear that if anyone has the right to be pissed off and disturbed, it’s the teachers who have to deal with these ritalin-addled illiterate unaborted fetuses on a daily basis.

CLASS OF 1984 opens with an advisory:

“Last year there were 280,000 incidents of violence by students against their teachers and classmates in our high schools.”

“Unfortunately, this film is partially based on true events.”

“Fortunately, very few high schools are like Lincoln High School…yet.”

The first 30 minutes or so of CLASS OF 1984 plays more like a “very important” ABC After School Special, complete with troubled kids dealing with drugs and gangs and parents who just don’t understand. And for anyone who has seen REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE or DIFFERENT STROKES will attest, this is well-trammeled territory and deathly boring.

Perry King plays the new teach in town, and Perry’s character has clearly never seen WELCOME BACK, KOTTER, because if he had he may well have been more prepared for life in an inner-city high school, as it is Perry is shocked, Shocked to see such rampant disregard for authority.

Okay, first off you would think that if the filmmakers were serious about constructing a hard-nosed drama about life and death in Lincoln High, they would have cast the heavy hand of Malcolm McDowell, rather than the light touch of Roddy MacDowell. But, the fact is, Roddy MacDowell makes the first 30-40 minutes of the film bearable, by giving the cartoonish first act a black comic tint.

Michael J. Fox (credited as Michael Fox) is a chubby-cheeked young goodie two shoes who is friends with a good kid about to go bad in a pivotal scene in the movie. In a men’s room so decorated with graffiti (one particular bit of graffiti stands out, “Juice not O.J. he a black man”) one wonders why the hell doesn’t someone paint the fuckin’ walls black, the Punks sell Fox’s friend some white powdery substance assumed to be narcotic. The drug sends the young man into such a bat-shit state that he climbs to the top of a flagpole and recites the pledge of allegiance before plummeting to his death. The scene concludes with a nicely staged shot of the dead kid lying on the ground wrapped in the American flag.

This death is the starting point for a series of wildly exuberant acts of violence by the Punks led by Tim Van Patton. And while the Punks may physically resemble Marlon Brando’s WILD ONE and even a little of “The Jets” from WEST SIDE STORY, their actions are a bit more in line with the merry pranksters from A CLOCKWORK ORANGE.

The best scene in the film begins a third act that redeems the entire movie from being a second-rate BLACKBOARD JUNGLE to the elevated position of revenge action classic ala DIRTY HARRY and DEATH WISH. After the Punks slaughter and carefully display Roddy MacDowell’s animals for all to see in his Biology lab, Mr. MacDowell takes the Punks hostage at gun point and threatens death unless his stuttering students answer his pop quiz queries correctly, resulting in a dark, hilarious, and provocative scene jarring in it’s departure from the previous tone of the film. Fuck “No Child Left Behind”, how about “You Read and Comprehend Tolstoy or You Get a Bullet Between the Fuckin’ Eyes”!

After Perry King’s wife is raped and beaten by the Punks the action really kicks into overdrive with excellent blood-soaked F/X and a quick-paced climax that is quite simply a thing of beauty. Think Perry King as Chuck Bronson with pocket protector.