I was pleasantly surprised to discover how serious this film took the issues of both social injustice and cheating within the high school microcosm. Jeff Daniels gives an excellent performance as Dr. Plecki, the adviser and sponsor of the Academic Decathlon team at Steinmetz, a working class Chicago high school, who sees an opportunity to buck the system and gets his students to cheat in the competition, something that many of them don't need very much help to be convinced to do.
I think most viewers of this film might tend to look at the actual competition itself from a distance, so let me just say one thing from an insider's perspective since I was on my high school's Academic Decathlon team. The facts that the movie present about the unfair advantages wealthier schools have over others is completely true. There were four high schools in my school district, and two of them routinely won the local Academic Decathlon every year. Wouldn't you know it, it was the two wealthier high schools, like Whitney Young in this film. And just like in the movie, they could afford to actually offer a specific class dealing with Academic Decathlon, whereas the rest of schools had to do all their work and research on the students own private time.
Now it might sound like I'm griping and moaning and being a poor loser about just a pointless little challenge, but the fact is the Academic Decathlon isn't just a superficial status competition; it really looks good to have a victory on your resume. But the fact is, when one school wins a contest over and over again because they have an unfair advantage, it's not really a competition, it's just an excuse for elitists to stick it to underprivileged kids year after year.
I also have to commend Paul Sorvino for his wonderful role as Steinmetz principal Constantine Kiamos, the man who stands behind his Academic Decathlon team against the media backlash about the cheating. I was pleased the film makers presented Kiamos so fairly; he is not an evil man who's trying to cover up the conspiracy; he's ignorant of it (as is everyone else in the school save the Decathlon team) and is honestly trying to protect his students and his school. That aspects makes his defense of the cheaters all the more tragic. The same goes for the all the parents of the cheaters as well.
Another thing is the Whitney Young Academic Decathlon team doesn't seem to challenge Steinmetz's victory for anything as noble as "keeping it fair." Despite the fact that they were ultimately right (one of the strange moral ambiguities of this film), it seems more like they were trying to stop their "social lessers" from getting a one up on them. I think it's all together likely that even if Steinmetz hadn't cheated, Whitney Young would have protested anyway.
All in all, a brilliant movie that details a group of students who sought the wrong way to fight an unfair system, and also serves as a reminder that despite society's progress, there will always be an invisible wall that blocks the underprivileged from advancing, even in something as "insignificant" as a scholastic competition.
I think most viewers of this film might tend to look at the actual competition itself from a distance, so let me just say one thing from an insider's perspective since I was on my high school's Academic Decathlon team. The facts that the movie present about the unfair advantages wealthier schools have over others is completely true. There were four high schools in my school district, and two of them routinely won the local Academic Decathlon every year. Wouldn't you know it, it was the two wealthier high schools, like Whitney Young in this film. And just like in the movie, they could afford to actually offer a specific class dealing with Academic Decathlon, whereas the rest of schools had to do all their work and research on the students own private time.
Now it might sound like I'm griping and moaning and being a poor loser about just a pointless little challenge, but the fact is the Academic Decathlon isn't just a superficial status competition; it really looks good to have a victory on your resume. But the fact is, when one school wins a contest over and over again because they have an unfair advantage, it's not really a competition, it's just an excuse for elitists to stick it to underprivileged kids year after year.
I also have to commend Paul Sorvino for his wonderful role as Steinmetz principal Constantine Kiamos, the man who stands behind his Academic Decathlon team against the media backlash about the cheating. I was pleased the film makers presented Kiamos so fairly; he is not an evil man who's trying to cover up the conspiracy; he's ignorant of it (as is everyone else in the school save the Decathlon team) and is honestly trying to protect his students and his school. That aspects makes his defense of the cheaters all the more tragic. The same goes for the all the parents of the cheaters as well.
Another thing is the Whitney Young Academic Decathlon team doesn't seem to challenge Steinmetz's victory for anything as noble as "keeping it fair." Despite the fact that they were ultimately right (one of the strange moral ambiguities of this film), it seems more like they were trying to stop their "social lessers" from getting a one up on them. I think it's all together likely that even if Steinmetz hadn't cheated, Whitney Young would have protested anyway.
All in all, a brilliant movie that details a group of students who sought the wrong way to fight an unfair system, and also serves as a reminder that despite society's progress, there will always be an invisible wall that blocks the underprivileged from advancing, even in something as "insignificant" as a scholastic competition.