Product Description

Top Hollywood star Michelle Pfeiffer (I AM SAM, WHAT LIES BENEATH) is the driving force behind this gripping and uplifting smash hit! Based on an incredible true-life story -- Pfeiffer is former U.S. Marine LouAnne Johnson, a first-time high school teacher assigned to a class of tough but smart inner city students. When conventional methods fail to reach them, the feisty Ms. Johnson tries the unconventional -- defying the rules and creating her own curriculum! In the process, she instills a new self-confidence in her students -- motivating them toward their greatest potential. Critically acclaimed and powered by a riveting star performance, DANGEROUS MINDS is hard-hitting, crowd-pleasing entertainment you won't soon forget!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4611 in DVD
• Brand: BUENA VISTA HOME VIDEO
• Released on: 1999-07-13
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Letterboxed, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, French
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 99 minutes

Amazon.com
This "To Ma'am with Love" is much more an escapist popcorn movie than the inner-city document its marketing suggested. Michelle Pfeiffer plays real-life former Marine Louanne Johnson, a high school English teacher who meets resistance from kids and administration alike at a tough urban school in Northern California. Pfeiffer is good, and her character's overall development even survives various post-production story cuts. (A romance with Andy Garcia's character was completely eliminated before release; Garcia is nowhere in sight.) The actors who play Johnson's students are also fine, and the whole film becomes the latest in a long tradition of sentimental movies about teachers who change the lives of kids. --Tom Keogh

From The New Yorker
LouAnne Johnson (Michelle Pfeiffer), a divorced ex-Marine, teaches English in an urban Northern California high school, and her students are an unruly, education-resistant bunch-that is, a typical supporting cast for the heroic-teacher genre. Thanks to Pfeiffer's inventive acting, John N. Smith's movie does a fairly entertaining job of capturing the unscrupulous, guerrilla-like cunning of a good teacher in a bad school. But the cut-to-the-enlightenment dramaturgy of Ronald Bass's screenplay feels desperate and false. And in the final scenes the movie gets as sticky as "To Sir with Love." It canonizes the heroine needlessly: Pfeiffer looks plenty good without a halo. Also with George Dzundza and Courtney B. Vance. Based on Johnson's memoir, "My Posse Don't Do Homework." -Terrence Rafferty
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

An excellent real life movie you can't miss
After I watched Dangerous Minds for the first time I couldn't stop watching it. It was such a good movie. It was sad but that was part of what made it so good. Sometimes in order to enjoy a movie there has to be sad parts or it doesn't seem realistic.

My favortie character in the movie was Callie Roberts. She was such a smart, strong person. I felt sorry for her having to be in a class like that.

If you haven't seen Dangerous Minds, you have to rent it. You won't regret it.

Good movie
This movie was real good. But it could have gone without the swearing even thought then it wouldn't seem very gangster like. But this movie shows what the kids go through in that kind of a life. It is so sad what happens to Emilio. He was actually starting to change but then the stupid principal wouldn't talk to him. That part just made my mouth hang open when he said he sent him away for not knocking. But I'm not going to tell you the whole story. I think everyone should see it at least once. You don't have to buy it, just rent it or something. It shows you how really gangster life is not really as cool as some people think it to be. But this movie was good enough for me to buy

Not Bad/ Not Perfect Either!
Michelle Pfeiffer plays LouAnne Johnson an ex-Marine teaching a inner-city school. I thought the movie had a good message but, I saw a lot of "Lean on Me" elements, and that's what didn't make it very original in my opinion. I thought that Michelle did a wonderful job, and it's a very inspirational movie. I guess that I just expected more than that. I can say that it is based on actual events that happened so, that's a plus.