One Eight Seven (1997)

Directed by

Kevin Reynolds

Genre

drama film, crime film, thriller film, hood film

Country

United States

Runtime

1h 54m

Rated

R

Rating

6.7 of 10 from 640 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A Los Angeles high school teacher transfers to a new school after a violent threat from a student. He struggles to survive and maintain order in a classroom ruled by gang violence.

tensegrittybleaksuspensefulharrowingunsettlingslow-burnintense

What happens

One Eight Seven (also known as 187) is a 1997 American crime drama thriller film directed by Kevin Reynolds. It was the first top-billed starring role for Samuel L. Jackson, who plays a Los Angeles teacher caught with gang trouble in an urban high school. It also has John Heard, Kelly Rowan, and Clifton Collins Jr. in supporting roles. The film's name comes from the California Penal Code Section 187, which defines murder. The original screenplay was written in 1995 by Scott Yagemann, a Los Angeles area high school substitute teacher for seven years. He wrote the screenplay after an incident when a violent transfer student had threatened to kill him and his family. Yagemann reported the threat to the authorities and the student was arrested. About a week later, he was called by the district attorney to testify against the student in a court of law, where the student was being prosecuted for stabbing a teacher's aide a year before. This annoyed Yagemann, who had not been told about it beforehand, and led to him writing the screenplay. He claimed that 90% of the film's material is based on incidents that had happened to him and other teachers in real life. One Eight Seven was produced by Icon Productions and released by Warner Bros. on July 30, 1997. The film received mixed to negative reviews from critics and was a box office bomb, grossing $5.7 million against a $20 million budget. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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