Cheaters
Putting The System To The Test
Chicago's Steinmetz High School doesn't have a hope of winning the state's academic contest. Their rival - Whitney Young - is a winning school that hand-picked it's way to the top. But one teacher and his students know they can succeed with the right about of study, the right application, the right discipline...the right answers.
When one of them steals the test papers, the biggest question becomes: should they cheat their way to the trophy? Winning will make or break the rest of their lives, and for the first time they have all the right answers - except one.
Member Reviews
A Bland But Troubling Scandal Story - revsdd
As this movie came to an end I found myself troubled by it. The movie itself was OK - but really no better than that - and the incident upon which it's based is an interesting one from a number of perspectives. It's the story of how the Academic Decathlon Team of Steinmetz High School in Chicago cheated to win the Illinois State Championship, with the knowledge, encouragement and active participation of their teacher and coach, played by Jeff Daniels. It's a classic “ends justifying the means” kind of story. Everyone involved seemed to portray both the cheating and the cover-up as a noble act, necessitated by their belief that the competition was biased in favour of the perennial champs. Steinmetz was a racially diverse, financially challenged inner city school; their rivals a privileged “white bread” sort of school. To everyone involved in the scam this apparently justified the dishonesty.
That's what I found troubling here. There was never a moment of contrition; never a point when anyone directly involved said simply “this was wrong.” Even the kid who finally blew the whistle did so only out of jealousy - because he wasn't getting to share in the limelight of winning. In the end, everyone involved (teacher and students) seemed to do just fine with few serious consequences (the teacher lost his job but ended up opening his own business while most of the students seem to have successfully gone on to university, their experience with the scam becoming an apparently valuable piece of life experience) which perhaps explains one of the closing captions: 80% of high school students admitted to cheating, while 50% thought cheating was OK. I wonder what that portends for the future? Then at the end we're told that one of the School Board officials who condemned cheating was sent to jail later the same year for tax evasion. The apparent message: everyone does it in their own way.
Frankly, it's not a great movie, but it is a troubling one.Well Done Film - kav2001c
The only way 2 people can keep a secret is if one of them is dead.
This is a well done movie about a teacher who throws the academic world on its head when he teaches his students from a small underfunded public school to cheat in order to beat the more prestiges prep schools.
Of course under intense pressures from the media one of the kids soon starts to crack, and the scandal becomes public.
Member Reviews
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A Bland But Troubling Scandal Story - revsdd
As this movie came to an end I found myself troubled by it. The movie itself was OK - but really no better than that - and the incident upon which it's based is an interesting one from a number of perspectives. It's the story of how the Academic Decathlon ...Well Done Film - kav2001c
The only way 2 people can keep a secret is if one of them is dead.
This is a well done movie about a teacher who throws the academic world on its head when he teaches his students from a small underfunded public school to cheat in order to beat the more ...