The Lesson

It only took 15 minutes into film for me hate both students... So whatever the teacher did torturing them was a treat for me..

I was really looking forward to this tale of revenge and learning as the premise sounded entertaining. A teacher, Mr Gale (Hands), who is ridiculed daily by his students, decides to take matters into his own hands and to elevate their learning curves by some extreme teaching methods.

You do get what you expect; there are some nasty scenes of violence and abuse. The scene where Mr Gale nails the hand of his student, Fin (Bendall), to the desk looks realistic. It's the realism which could have made this movie something special.

I've known families like Fin's and his brother's, Jake (Cox), where the brothers don't get on... to the point of arguing, fighting, and forsaking. I've also known the senseless bullies of Fin and Joel's (Coltart) order. Though I do hope that the scene in the schoolroom isn't that realistic - if it is, I pity the teachers and can understand the twenty-six-grand to study to teach the government are offering.

The trouble starts when you get to the tortuous indoctrination. Through all of the bleakness, we are then subjected to a gayfull and lunatic lesson. This departs from reality and enters the demented. Which, in itself wouldn't be a bad thing had Mr Gale been suffering from a mental break. However, this doesn't appear to be the case. Then when you throw in Fin's delusion it was enough to wrench me away from the film, thinking, what the hell(?). From here the story and character of Mr Gale become preposterous and unbelievable. I felt that both the writer and the director, Ruth Platt, were trying too hard to get their point across, making the story appear pompous and pretentious.

It's from here on in that the film falls apart.

The really ludicrous thing is the scene where Jake's Girlfriend, Tanja (Gavanski), is accosted and forced to join in the lesson. She's worried that Fin's not come home, though his brother doesn't give a damn, so she sets out to find him. She wanders the town aimlessly and just by coincidence comes across Mr Gale. This is absurd because the abduction takes place outside. How did Mr Gale know she was there, let alone that she had an interest in one of his captives.

Then there's the timeline which is totally cockeyed by the end of the film. So what started out as an okay film drops into a quagmire of below average revenge torture fodder.

If you like your revenge stories and can empathise with teachers then this may be worth a watch, though it could have been much better and even could have made a statement. Though I would say you'd be better off with the Hostel or Saw franchises.

Firstly .. this is torture porn! Its not revernge horror/gore, its about the torture..

Now, the movie itself has its ups and downs .. more downs though. The main story is simple .. but obscured by a totally unnecessary sideplot and relationship drama that adds little to nothing.

With that said, in my opinion .. this movie could have benefitted TREMENDOULY from removing this sideplot entirely .. and cutting runtime to a brief 1 hour .. cause i venture to say that the "joy" of the movie comes from the mainplot alone and not some overcoming of an abusive relationship.

So .. the main plot; taking revenge on students that .. by all means .. seem to "deserve it" .. students with no redeeming quality. So far, so good. The problem i had with this movie is that the teacher just wasnt a very good teacher. (speaking from the perspective of being a teacher myself) He certainly came across as idealistic and enthusiastic .. but not a good teacher.

The students on the other hand came across as just a bit "too rude" .. considering the portrait demographic, such behaviour is VERY hard to imagine .. (although i am not familiar with the english demographic that well, but when i compare it to the nordic education, such student behaviour is simply in the realm of fantasy)

There was a lot of blood .. but not that much gore as most scenes that would "show" gore tended to obscure the actual wounding. So you are left with the acting (not too bad). Actually, i liked the performance of all the main cast .. although not too demanding, i would think .. it was still well done.

I cannot quite recommend this movie, because of the utterly boring sideplot that creates long periods of boredom in the movie .. and the rather unsatisfactory ending.

Have read a lot about this film and it's independent, creative,thoughtful persona. Has a docudrama / realist heart , getting down there to the "real"people on the council estates with all these problems (mostly via male emotional betrayal and bullying) that lead to classic alienation from education, culture, love, and playing a positive role in a society (in this film unmentioned in terms of poverty, economic exploitation and inequality). Thus, the effect on the cultured, educated English teacher of these ill cultured crude schoolboys who disrupt and abuse him in his classes is for him to become a vicious, psychotic kidnapper and murderer. And thus rescuing the working class laddo and lassie from their grimness, lifting them into a chocolate box cottage life of Oxbridge culture. Arty rubbish is how I felt watching this mish mash of styles and ideas. This film reminded me of the gymnasium scene from Andersons' "If" where the rebel Mick is beaten into submission and then has to shake the hand of his establishment bully.

This literally felt like a film school mesh of style and (now) old-school torture porn. Don't get me wrong; the movie was well-made and shot, but it seemed like a bunch of ideas (Look at what I can do!) all edited together with the bulk of Angry Teacher thrown in for the majority of the substance.

Is there a message here? Are there characters that you can stand behind? Can anyone really learn a lesson here? If you answered YES to any of those questions…I'm gonna nail gun you so hard nouns will spill out of your bloody orifice!

And now. For your homework…find a more cohesive movie to watch.