Product Description

Based on the true story of new jersey high school principal Joe Clark,who wins the support and respect of his students for his controversial methods in ridding the school of violent students and drug dealers.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3532 in DVD
• Brand: WARNER HOME VIDEO
• Released on: 1998-10-20
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 108 minutes

Amazon.com essential video
Rocky director John Avildsen championed the briefly famous New Jersey high school principal Joe Clark in this upbeat 1989 drama. Morgan Freeman plays the tough-love educator who wields a baseball bat and bullhorn to keep discipline in his hallways and to motivate underachieving students to keep their acts together. After establishing Clark's controversial methods and showing him giving some punks the boot, Avildsen relies on the usual school-drama clichés to fill out the rest of the movie, including a challenge to Clark's philosophy from timid authorities. Freeman makes a strong impact as Clark, his dignity and integrity a sometimes awesome thing. Avildsen, however, is going for a Rocky-esque emotional crescendo. --Tom Keogh

Customer Reviews

'Crazy Joe' goes Hollywood...
`Lean On Me' has become one of my favorite inspirational movies involving real people and events, despite the simplified and sometimes sappy-sickly-sweet Hollywood `feel-good' treatment it's been given, along with a happy ending that ties everything up a bit too neat and nice. The forces trying to stop Joe Clark's straightforward efforts to turn Eastside High School around has been simplified for the movie, basically involving just a disgruntled parent and the city mayor. Even the many heated arguments between Clark and his faculty & superiors are less than sophisticated in wording and tone. None the less, I've always loved Morgan Freeman's performance of Clark.

Clark's expulsion of the most delinquent students was a pretty neat scene, and was something of a surprise when I first saw it. Anyone who'd attempt that nowadays would probably get sued penniless. And the rooftop scene where he tells expelled crackhead student Thomas Sams to just jump off the roof of the school and kill himself swiftly rather than slowly by smoking crack is one of my fave film moments, and the best 'tough love' moment in movie history: "It kills your brain cells, son, it kills your brain cells!"

And as the school improves, Clark does as well. In the movie you see him learning and adapting alongside the students & faculty. Even with his best efforts, he discovers that can't turn things around by himself. At first, his gruff behavior and strongarm approaches to solving problems makes most of the teachers reluctant to help him out. But they learn to adapt to Clark, and he learns to soften his methods a bit, and even gains a sense of humor.

Sadly, the real Joe Clark, to a small degree, has `gone Hollywood'. His big gig nowadays is working the lecture circuit, as a motivational speaker. He's even written a book about what to do to save America's public schools. I've heard some of his speeches, and found them rather compelling, but I feel his talents and drive are best suited for running a school in need of a decisive, no-nonsense leader who gets things done.

`Late...

The Reformation of Eastside High School
The movie, Lean On Me, focuses on the vigorous efforts of one man, Joe Clark, to clean up Eastside High School and make it a safe enviroment conducive to learning. The Joe Clark, portrayed by Morgan Freeman in the movie, began his task with a domineering, aggressive manner that held the ideal that the positive outweighs the negative. With a transactional leadership quality, Clark immediately gains control of the schoolthrough "challenging the process" as he reprimands the school's faculty for the current state of the school. His next step was to expell students deemed as undesirable trouble makers. Altogether, 300 students were told that they were no longer welcome at Eastside High School. The antagonist in the movie is a mother of one of the expelled students who immediately begins plotting Clark's demise, and continues to do so throughout the movie. While reforming the school and working to raise student test scores, Joe Clark not only transforms the school for the better, but also goes through a personal reformation as he learns to show appreciation for those working with him to accomplish a shared vision.

Should be required viewing for principals
There's much to learn hear about leadership, management, and discipline. All of which seem to be in short supply in many of our public schools. But that may be more of a result of lethargic school boards rather than faculty. Morgan Freeman is transformed into Joe Clark, the brash, hard nosed, take no prisoners principal of the all too real East Side High. His principles are straight forward. 1) Discipline. No cigarettes, weapons, mouthing off, grafitti, drugs, tardiness. 2) Personal responsibility for both teacher and student alike 3) Pride in yourself, your race, your community, and your institution. 4) Hard work. And perhaps most importantly 5) the value of an education to affect your opportunities in life.

Joe Clark listens, encourages, chastises, and directs students and faculty. And perhaps most importantly he is accessible. Walking the hallways, attending classes. Although his measures may have been at times extreme and not in keeping with popular sentiment you could not argue with his results.

The film works and I definitely rate it as a purchase just not necessarily a classic.