Metacritic-Rezensionen

The well-known story beats are also given renewed vitality by the young actors, whom director Christopher Zalla expertly steers away from being typical overemoting movie kids.

Radical doesn't reinvent the wheel when it comes to what we've come to expect from teaching dramas. The movie's message may not be profound or revelatory either, but that doesn't keep this from being an uplifting story full of hope and heart.

Radical may hit all the requisite narrative arcs, but it does so with a level of nuance and examination that other films of this type either gloss over or ignore entirely.

While Radical, an audience winner at the Sundance Film Festival, is formulaic in its approach, it gets enough out of it likable cast to earn at least a passing grade.

Boosted by some lovely performances from its young actors, writer-director Christopher Zalla’s sometimes-creaky feel-good film is most affecting when it explores how some children can have their future taken away only too soon.

The strength of the story rests firmly in Derbez's sensitive portrayal and his touching moments with each student, proving that Sergio does know how to spark a genuine excitement for education by tapping into a child's personal interests.

Writer-director Christopher Zalla adheres to the subgenre’s conventions and doesn’t stint on sentimentality, but Radical more than earns its surging emotional payoff.

Radical isn’t so much an irresponsibly magical against-the-odds yarn as a truthful one, in which a well-intentioned outsider can only go so far in protecting underprivileged students from certain grim paths.

Radical can’t escape a formulaic construction with scenes that pack a predictably saccharine punch (see: kids rushing to hug their beloved teacher once he has proven himself an ally). And yet, as unsubtle as the story beats tend to march on, the backdrop of poverty and hopelessness make the light that Derbez’s character brings into the classroom, and in turn into the youths’ lives, earned.

Like Sergio’s unusual modus operandi, Radical takes some time to click, its first half as unstructured as Sergio’s classroom. But at about the halfway point, when the kids discover the excitement of learning, it becomes as thrilling as any blockbuster.