Morgan Freeman has made a long career out of playing wise, soft-spoken men. He has a distinctive voice that works well for narration, and even in his younger days when he was in films like The Shawshank Redemption and Glory, he still carried himself as a wiser man who had lived through a lot of hard times and earned some wisdom and authority over his younger peers.
It is therefore both refreshing and unusual to see him in a movie like Lean on Me where he seems to spend a lot of time angry and shouting, even if it is for a good purpose.
Lean on Me tells the true story of Joe Clark (Freeman), the controversial high school principal for Paterson, New Jersey’s Eastside High. Selected against the better wishes of the mayor (Alan North), Clark was sent in to shape up a school he had taught at himself 20 years earlier. Clark is a no-nonsense kind of man who greatly values education as a means for success and sees himself as someone who must get very involved in the lives of his students in order to see that they can succeed in life. He’s tough, loud, and carries a bullhorn with him as much as he can. Nicknamed “Crazy Joe,” he holds everyone he encounters to high standards, and his most frequent pose is to point an accusing index finger at whoever he is currently lecturing. Since Eastside is something of a cesspool for drugs and vandalism, his first act is to expel the 300 students known to be drug users or dealers. Yes, he’ll let one back in when the kid begs enough and will keep an eye on the young man as he improves over time, but he doesn’t want anyone deviating one iota from his program and methods.
Oh, and he doesn’t limit his lecturing and harsh talk to just his students. He treats his faculty the same way, and concerned parents who don’t care for his educational methods aren’t free from his tough talk. He will suspend a teacher for stooping to pick up some garbage in the cafeteria while he is lecturing some students on the importance of general appearance and knowing the school song. That does, of course, earn him some enemies, most notably in the form of concerned mother Mrs. Barrett (Lynne Thigpen), a woman who will stop at nothing to see Clark fired for how he does his job.
As directed by John G. Avildson, is does fit in with Avildson’s general oeuvre, namely it has a sort of “underdog makes good” quality to it that can be seen in the man’s best known movies, namely Rocky and The Karate Kid. Clark’s story being a true one, it isn’t a surprise that his students get the necessary test scores to keep the state from taking the place over. His unorthodox methods work. And as formidable as Freeman is, Thigpen can hold her own when given the chance in a stock villain role. Thigpen would go on to do a lot of public television children’s programming before he death, but here she can show off what she could do when given the opportunity.
Plus, it really is nice to see Freeman in what is not a typical Morgan Freeman role. There’s nothing gentle or reassuring about Joe Clark. He may have the wisdom of many a Freeman character, but there’s nothing pleasant about the way he presents it, and other characters push back. It’s to Freeman’s credit that even when he is verbally saying otherwise, you can see the man thinking over things people have said to him that are constructive criticism at times.
That said, the movie itself is still a largely formulaic biopic with the expected highs and lows coming in at the right times. Will we expect Sams, the boy Clark let return to the school after his expulsion, to stay something of a slacker? Of course not. Are we to expect Clark’s methods, even as they enrage parents or alienate him from his own staff, won’t somehow win over the students who see he is the way he is because he cares so much? Obviously no. It’s mostly through Freeman’s performance that this movie rates as anything particularly special, and given his reputation as an actor, it sure was nice to see how well Freeman can play when he isn’t doing his usual sort of role.
Grade: B-
0 Comments