Rating: 
Summary: Awesome
Review: Nothing beats a teacher putting a bunch of wannabe tough guys in there place and making it look easy. Starts out with a former mercanary/marines girlfriend being assaulted by a gang from a local high school she teaches at. Completely fed up, Shale decides to take the matter into his own hands and fakes some credentials and becomes a sub at her high school. Highly recommended. You'll find yourself rooting for Shale the whole way.
Rating: 
Summary: let me tell you
Review: the only reason i saw this movie cause it was filmed at my high school miami senior high.i wasnt going there at the time but my sister was. so i saw it and didnt like it much but it was cool to see the school on film and know ive been there millions of times. p.s the school is not all f**ked up like they showed it they spray painted it and messed it up for filming.
Rating: 
Summary: "Blackboard Jungle" with grenades and tec-10s!
Review: This formula action film starts with the ho-hum premise of a CIA man Berenger undergoing the task of becoming a substitute teacher in a tough school, where he wonderfully repays the thuggish students in kind. After that, the plot takes a turn for the ludicrous as he uncovers a drug operation and smashes a posse of gangbangers. Strictly for action junkies, though the gun battles and fist fights have a sharper edge than usual. The treatment is fairly realistic as well, and, as one reviewer has pointed out below, the embarrassing PC treatment, which constantly rears its head into almost every film nowadays, is largely absent here. Tom Berenger convinces as the agent-cum-educator with a highly heterodox approach to school discipline. An entertaining actioner of quite some appeal.
Rating:
Summary: Quality bad movie
Review: This is a quality entry in the high school hell genre of films. Tom Berenger plays John Shale, a mercenary who takes a job substitute teaching his girlfriend's high school hell class after some thugs from the school knee-cap her. Naturally, he's a Vietnam veteran who hasn't gotten over the war. He and his gang of similarly disturbed vets plan to bust a major drug ring in the school and take off with the cash that the principal, played by Ghostbuster Ernie Hudson, is making selling coke to his students. Of course, Shale gets very righteous and says it's not for the money in the end. This film ultimately delivers some quality violence as the high school is reduced to a war zone for a good ten minutes with not a cop, fireman, or ambulance in sight. Lots of people die, at some points I actually couldn't even tell who was shooting at who, but it just didn't matter. The gang is cleaned out of the school like a cancer, exterminated by Shale and thus gratifying his need to resolve the Vietnam conflict in his mind. Expect the requisite scene of him 'reaching' the troubled students one day by talking about war and being shot and then realizing that their urban ghetto is a warzone, too. Expect quality character acting by William Forsythe as one of Shale's whacko vet buddies who's along for the ride, evoking images of his demented turn as Richie in Out for Justice. This movie will get the job done on a slow night. The Substitute series is now a staple of late night cable, with Treat Williams playing another (psychotic) mercenary cleaning up trouble spots in our nation's schools. Recommended for genre fans...
Rating:
Summary: Quality bad movie
Review: This is a quality entry in the high school hell genre of films. Tom Berenger plays John Shale, a mercenary who takes a job substitute teaching his girlfriend's high school hell class after some thugs from the school knee-cap her. Naturally, he's a Vietnam veteran who hasn't gotten over the war. He and his gang of similarly disturbed vets plan to bust a major drug ring in the school and take off with the cash that the principal, played by Ghostbuster Ernie Hudson, is making selling coke to his students. Of course, Shale gets very righteous and says it's not for the money in the end. This film ultimately delivers some quality violence as the high school is reduced to a war zone for a good ten minutes with not a cop, fireman, or ambulance in sight. Lots of people die, at some points I actually couldn't even tell who was shooting at who, but it just didn't matter. The gang is cleaned out of the school like a cancer, exterminated by Shale and thus gratifying his need to resolve the Vietnam conflict in his mind. Expect the requisite scene of him 'reaching' the troubled students one day by talking about war and being shot and then realizing that their urban ghetto is a warzone, too. Expect quality character acting by William Forsythe as one of Shale's whacko vet buddies who's along for the ride, evoking images of his demented turn as Richie in Out for Justice. This movie will get the job done on a slow night. The Substitute series is now a staple of late night cable, with Treat Williams playing another (psychotic) mercenary cleaning up trouble spots in our nation's schools. Recommended for genre fans...
Rating:
Summary: This movie is realistic.
Review: This movie is realistic in that there isn't any bull. It's my favorite movie because I'm tired of those stupid movies with people saying what someone wouldn't actually say in real life. It's kind of hard to explain but I definately recomend you see this movie. The only nudity is where they go to the strip club on suzy night. Tom Berenger is great in this movie and also does good in Sniper. In conclusion, I'd give this movie 6 stars if I could.
Rating: 
Summary: Horrible
Review: This movie was really awful. The action scenes were not believable or entertaining, and the acting was high school play level. By the end of the movie, I was laughing at how bad it was. The theme of a teacher who "really cares" seeking the truth in an inner city school is way overdone. This movie is not worth the 1.5 hours it takes to sit through it.
Rating:
Summary: A Guilty Pleasure
Review: Those of us who teach for a living enjoy a guilty pleasure in "The Substitute." While we'd never dream of ever harming any of our students--well, at least I'd never dream of it--the catharsis from a fiction about a good guy mercenary cleaning house of all the bad influences in an urban high school--violent punks, drug lowlifes and sociopath gangbangers and the evil adults who indulge their self-destruction--is just too wonderful to pass up. Tom Berenger eschews the angry racist persona he brought to life so ably in "Platoon" for a different man of action, in this case, Shales, a professional soldier with a heart and a brain. Besieged and assaulted by teenybopper thugs who work for the local drug kingpin, his teacher girlfriend turns to the only man who might be able to stop them, forcing Shales to go undercover as a substitute teacher to root out the source of the problems. While the script is fantasy and has very little to do with teaching, and the production values are on the "B" side, the able cast--including Ernie Hudson, William Forsythe, Richard Brooks, and many other familiar faces--plays it with just the right amount of humor and zeal. Director Robert Mandel infuses the production with a pace and wit that has helped other low-budget productions make it to cult status (think "Alligator"), and "The Substitute" deserves an audience. If you teach, put this one on your shelf for those days when you feel like you could use a mercenary to put some order back into the classroom for you!
Rating:
Summary: A Guilty Pleasure
Review: Those of us who teach for a living enjoy a guilty pleasure in "The Substitute." While we'd never dream of ever harming any of our students--well, at least I'd never dream of it--the catharsis from a fiction about a good guy mercenary cleaning house of all the bad influences in an urban high school--violent punks, drug lowlifes and sociopath gangbangers and the evil adults who indulge their self-destruction--is just too wonderful to pass up. Tom Berenger eschews the angry racist persona he brought to life so ably in "Platoon" for a different man of action, in this case, Shales, a professional soldier with a heart and a brain. Besieged and assaulted by teenybopper thugs who work for the local drug kingpin, his teacher girlfriend turns to the only man who might be able to stop them, forcing Shales to go undercover as a substitute teacher to root out the source of the problems. While the script is fantasy and has very little to do with teaching, and the production values are on the "B" side, the able cast--including Ernie Hudson, William Forsythe, Richard Brooks, and many other familiar faces--plays it with just the right amount of humor and zeal. Director Robert Mandel infuses the production with a pace and wit that has helped other low-budget productions make it to cult status (think "Alligator"), and "The Substitute" deserves an audience. If you teach, put this one on your shelf for those days when you feel like you could use a mercenary to put some order back into the classroom for you!
Rating:
Summary: A Guilty Pleasure
Review: Those of us who teach for a living enjoy a guilty pleasure in "The Substitute." While we'd never dream of ever harming any of our students--well, at least I'd never dream of it--the catharsis from a fiction about a good guy mercenary cleaning house of all the bad influences in an urban high school--violent punks, drug lowlifes and sociopath gangbangers and the evil adults who indulge their self-destruction--is just too wonderful to pass up. Tom Berenger eschews the angry racist persona he brought to life so ably in "Platoon" for a different man of action, in this case, Shales, a professional soldier with a heart and a brain. Besieged and assaulted by teenybopper thugs who work for the local drug kingpin, his teacher girlfriend turns to the only man who might be able to stop them, forcing Shales to go undercover as a substitute teacher to root out the source of the problems. While the script is fantasy and has very little to do with teaching, and the production values are on the "B" side, the able cast--including Ernie Hudson, William Forsythe, Richard Brooks, and many other familiar faces--plays it with just the right amount of humor and zeal. Director Robert Mandel infuses the production with a pace and wit that has helped other low-budget productions make it to cult status (think "Alligator"), and "The Substitute" deserves an audience. If you teach, put this one on your shelf for those days when you feel like you could use a mercenary to put some order back into the classroom for you!
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