| Original Score: C- | Sep 7, 2011

Pfeiffer gives a funny, scrappy performance that makes you feel a committed teacher's fire to make a difference.

Full Review | May 12, 2001

The tale screenwriter Ronald Bass came up with, and the way director John N. Smith tells it, is stereotypical, predictable and simplified to the point of meaninglessness.

| Feb 13, 2001

If only the filmmakers had used some subtlety in telling the story, they could have done right by the real LouAnne Johnson.

| Jan 1, 2000

The movie pretends to show poor black kids being bribed into literacy by Dylan and candy bars, but actually it is the crossover white audience that is being bribed with mind-candy in the form of safe words by the two Dylans.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Jan 1, 2000

The movie has real emotional and reportorial credibility, a prime source of its power.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 1, 2000

Pfeiffer has a lot of good moments as Johnson.

Full Review | Jan 1, 2000

Stay home and watch Welcome Back Kotter. It's more enlightening.

Full Review | Jan 1, 2000

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jan 1, 2000

What makes it work is the integrity of Pfeiffer's performance and Smith's direction, and the high spirits of the young, racially diverse supporting cast.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 1, 2000

Pfieffer is absurdly miscast: Sly Stallone would make a more plausible Mr. Chips than the frail, squeaky actress does a nine-year veteran of the Marine Corps.

| Jan 1, 2000

| Original Score: C- | Aug 11, 1995