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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 28, 1995)
Monday • August 28, 1995 ^4 Page 11 'The Battalion Wade Dominguez plays Emilio Ramirez, one of the inner-city students who receives guidance and encourage ment from their English teacher ( Pfeiffer). New faces help Pfeiffer bring true story to life in Dangerous Minds Bangi Starring Michelle Pfeil and Renply Santiago Directed by John N. Smith Rated R Playing at Hollywood (out of five) By Rachel Barry The Battalion In Dangerous Minds, Michelle Pfeiffer’s new movie about helping inner-city kids succeed, the heart of the movie is the students. Disruptive and out of control, they have no mo tivation to learn. Eventually their motivation comes from their teacher, LouAnne Johnson (Pfeiffer) — but not without a little pushing, a little crying and a lot of bribing. Dangerous Minds is based on Johnson’s true story of an ex- Marine turned English instruc tor whose first teaching experi ence leaves her being booed and yelled out of the classroom. Johnson, donning a leather jacket and cowboy boots, becomes determined to take control of the class any way she can. Through karate, candy bars and a trip to an amusement park, she slowly holds the students’ attention and they begin to learn. Most of the movie consists of Johnson’s battles with the stu dents and school board. She is torn between the only methods that will get student’s attention and the curriculum set by the school board. Struggling to keep the stu dents in class, Johnson goes to their homes and sometimes in vites them into hers. In any other situation, her good deeds would seem overdone and ex treme. In this case, however, they are justified by her deter mination to keep the students in class and to eventually see them graduate. The classroom in Dangerous Minds is filled with faces of un known actors. They aren’t un touchable waifs or buff high school boys — they are the real thing, and their believability adds depth to the movie. Renoly Santiago, a newcomer to the screen, plays Raul, one of Johnson’s favorite students. Through the course of the se mester, Raul changes from a fighting street kid to a poetry reading student. Santiago’s per formance is one of the best in Dangerous Minds. He combines the street smarts of his facade with the innocence of his charac ter perfectly and delivers a star performance. One weakness of Dangerous Minds is its script.The transitions are unclear and choppy,making it hard to follow. Relationships be tween characters aren’t developed well. When tragedy strikes, the emotion that should be evoked doesn’t because the connection with the characters wasn’t there in the first place. There wasn’t enough time to properly de velop the story and to do it justice. The true story be hind Dan gerous Minds is the driving force of the movie. Ac tors and scripts Pfeiffer aside, what keeps Dangerous Minds from slipping into the mass of street- kids-fighting-back movies is that it is real. 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By joining you now have the opportunity to become directly involved with Aggieland’s greatest traditions Bonfire, Midnight Yell, Silver Taps, Reveille, and many others. m sAs. m, M ; „ v i € iff ^ / 1 t&e au&yide tao&itty i*t, yuc can, ’t uaden&tand it. Sut faun, t&e inside oat, tpott can’t explain it. Accept the challenge as the keeper of the spirit