Lean on Me

The dedicated but tyrannical Joe Clark is appointed the principal of a decaying inner-city school that he is determined to improve.

• Director:John G. Avildsen
• Genre:Drama
• Runtime:108 minutes

Cast

Morgan Freeman : Principal Joe Clark
Beverly Todd : Ms. Levias
Robert Guillaume: Dr. Frank Napier
Alan North : Mayor Don Bottman
Lynne Thigpen : Leonna Barrett

Eastside High School in Paterson, New Jersey, is plagued with numerous problems, especially those dealing with drugs and gang violence. Furthermore, the students are receiving low scores on the state’s basic skills test.

During the opening credits sequence (in 1987), after the principal is brutally beaten to death by students for trying to break up a fight, Mayor Bottman (Alan North) consults school superintendent Dr. Frank Napier, (Robert Guillaume), who suggests the school hire elementary school principal Joe Clark aka “Crazy Joe” (Freeman), who was a teacher at Eastside High 20 years ago, as the new principal. The mayor is reluctant at first, knowing about trouble Clark has caused in the past. But Clark is hired and things immediately get tense after Clark dismisses from the school hundreds of students identified as drug dealers or abusers and troublemakers. A meeting between the parents of those students and the academic board only fans the flames.

The next day, Clark runs into one of the expelled youths, Thomas Sams (Jermaine ‘Huggy’ Hopkins), asking to be let back into the school. In a dramatic rooftop scene, Clark gives him a sharp lecture about crack and what can happen to Sams if he kept on using it. Clark then threatens Sams to commit suicide by jumping off the roof, but Sams, breaking down in tears, refuses and make a promise to clean up his act. Clark reluctantly grants him a second chance to turn things around. Another dismissed student manages to get inside the school and attack another student before Clark comes to break up the fight. Knowing he is breaking the fire code, Clark orders all doors chained and locked during school hours to keep drug dealers out. Also, the students show no improvement in taking a practice version of the basic skills test (Passing was 35% below, according to Ms. Barret near the end of the movie). Read more

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