Cheaters

I am not normally one to post a review unless its a movie I hate (check out my review of Titanic), but after reading some ignorant reviews posted by people who have obviously never had to live in the type of environment that these kids had to, I decided to put things into perspective. I, myself, live in an empoverished area full of minorities. Poverty + Minorities = no one giving a rats ass about you. What these kids did was far more important than a simple academic decathlon, what they did was throw a brick through the window of the owner's box.

When you pit the rich against the poor, the rich will always win. There is no competition. And where there is no competition, there is no cheating.

Anyone who believes that this film glorifies dishonesty and deceit is part of the problem.

This movie presents a real moral dilemna... should students who have always been thought of as losers take the chance and cheat. The teacher has the toughest decision to make- whether to let his students cheat and what to do if they get caught. Jeff Daniels plays the part well- showing how he is torn- wanting his students to get recognition and wanting to teach them right from wrong. This movie is a very good look at the moral questions we all face in life.

This is a complicated movie, because you're not always sure you SHOULD be rooting for the main characters.

The film is about the apparently true story (I never heard about it) of how a teacher encouraged his students to cheat on an academic decathalon. The story was well told, but you're never really made to feel pity towards the characters. The story is told fairly and not just to be entertaining. I suppose it's a morality tale to a certain extent. But, be warned, there is a fair amount of foul language, more than I expected.

Still, a great and well done movie, and I feel will please those who are curious.

This tv movie basically shows what cheating gets you: short lived triumph and a quick downfall. But this goes way beyond an after school special. This tv movie examines it all as a scandal and goes into great detail about why and what happened. One thing I found interesting about this movie was how people reacted to the Steinmetz High win. Even though we know they cheated, it's interesting to see how some people automatically assume they cheated because they beat out a private school in a game of intelligence. Acting is superb and the whole movie is very realistic. Thumbs up on this one.

Cheaters is one of the best cable films. It's good because it makes a statement, which is that cheaters do prosper and that winning does count, contrary to what we are told throughout life. It justifies the characters' decision to cheat very nicely and it makes for an interesting story. It's not an amazing film that you can't believe they thought of, but one that's enjoyable to watch, partially because it is so plausible. Jeff Daniels plays the teacher who goes against policy and he is really convincing. The kids themselves are mostly cliches, but it doesn't matter because this isn't a movie about character, but about story, and the story is strong enough to make it a very good film.