One Eight Seven (1997)

• Year: 1997
• Released: 30 Jul 1997
• Country: United States
• Adwords: 1 win & 1 nomination
• IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118531/
• Rotten Tomatoes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/one_eight_seven
• Metacritics: https://www.metacritic.com/movie/one-eight-seven
• Available in: 720p, 1080p,
• Language: English, Spanish
• MPA Rating: R
• Genre: Drama, Thriller
• Runtime: 119 min
• Writer: Scott Yagemann
• Director: Kevin Reynolds
• Cast: Samuel L. Jackson, John Heard, Kelly Rowan
• Keywords: new york city, high school, teacher, attack, stabbing,

	6.6/10
	41/100
	30% – Critics
	67% – Audience

One Eight Seven Storyline

Trevor Garfield is a teacher in a New York City high school. After a student almost kills him in the hallway Garrfield relocates to Los Angeles, but the trouble starts again when he becomes a substitute to a class containing a tag crew by the name of K.O.S. Their murderous leader, Benny, tells Garfield that there will be no mutual respect between them. The tension mounts when a fellow teacher, Ellen Henry, confides that Benny has threatened her life. After Benny murders a rival tagger in cold blood and goes AWOL, Benny’s tag partner, Cesar, takes over as class antagonist. Garfield is forced to play by the rules of the street in a pyrrhic contest between victim and victimizer.

One Eight Seven Play trailer

One Eight Seven Photos

One Eight Seven Torrents Download

One Eight Seven Subtitles Download

One Eight Seven Movie Reviews

I liked this film until the end…which was tough to watch.

I am an ex-school teacher and while the school I taught in was NOT as rough as the ones you see in the film, the movie does highlight the biggest problem I see in public schools today. The bad kids, essentially, run things and there’s no accountability. As is often the case, teachers are never told about students’ criminal records I had students who were convicted sex offenders and I was never informed of this and only found out later. A friend of mine taught a student who paralyzed a previous teacher by stabbing her…and the teachers were never notified! I understand about the right to privacy, but this is insane…especially since these kids pose a serious risk to others. I mention all this because I have my own biases about this film…your reaction might be different.

When the story begins, Mr. Garfield (Samuel L. Jackson) is working as a substitute in New York City. One of his students has a record of stabbing folks…and because Garfield wasn’t prepared AND the kid was not appropriate for this school, tragedy strikes. Garfield is stabbed many times from behind by this sociopath…and it’s shocking he didn’t die. And, there was no warning.

Fifteen months have passed. While it’s not surprising Garfield moved to another part of the country, he didn’t pick well as now instead of the roughest and out of control New York City schools, he’s now substitute teaching in one of the tougher inner city schools in Los Angeles. Now instead of a few budding criminals in his classes, the classes are filled with punk gang members who seem to have nothing to lose if they attack him or anyone else. So what’s next? Well, it won’t be good! See the film and find out for yourself.

While I generally liked the film, the ending is ROUGH. I didn’t love it though I did understand it….and I can only assume most won’t love the ending as well. It’s a real downer. Had the ending been a bit less awful, I am sure I could have scored this one an 8 or even 9.

Little known, but one of Jackson’s best

A powerful story about urban violence and how it can affect inner city schools, this is an excellent little film. Samuel L. Jackson shines as the teacher fed up with his class who eventually begins exact his own kind of justice by bumping off the problem pupils. An atmosphere of simmering violence is built up along with a lot of suspense in a tale that had me hooked. The reliable Jackson puts in an excellent performance as the bitter teacher who has been driven to the edge.

The rest of the cast do their jobs well, especially the actors playing the loathsome pupils. What I liked best about this film was the surprising ending, which sees Jackson and his adversaries playing Russian Roulette round a table. A superb ending to what is an interesting, sometimes difficult to watch but still important film. Forget the watered-down crap that most television stations show, this is raw, forceful viewing which asks questions. In fact it reminded me of some of those gritty ’70s films, as it has the same hard edge.

Samuel L. Jackson doesn’t use his important word, but other people do

The teacher-comes-to-a-rough-school-with-lofty-aims story has gotten played out a lot onscreen. Kevin Reynolds’s “One Eight Seven” pretty much has that story. There are quite a few shocking scenes here (and not just the ones involving violence). It’s a worthy effort, but much of it seems like the sort of movie that I’ve seen multiple times. Not a terrible movie by any stretch – if you’re looking for an example of a terrible movie, try Milos Forman’s “Man on the Moon” – just nothing original.

It was strange hearing several of the characters use Samuel L. Jackson’s important word, but SLJ himself never uses it.