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All Movie Info
Starring:
Brendan Fraser, Matt Damon, Chris O'Donnell, Randall Batinkoff, Andrew Lowery, Cole Hauser, Ben Affleck, Anthony Rapp, Amy Locane, Peter Donat, Zeljko Ivanek, Kevin Tighe, Michael Higgins, Ed Lauter
Directed By:
Robert Mandel
Written By:
Darryl Ponicsan, Dick Wolf
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School Ties (1992)
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Movie Review by Jarrod
August 22nd, 2007
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'School Ties' carries with it a serious condemnation of anti-Semitism, but soft peddles it in such a way that the movie looks like it is trying too hard, and in a way it is, by making the Matt Damon character, Charlie Dillon, such an childish and detestable bigot, one almost has to think of him as a caricature, forced to say the things he does and not really meaning them. Brendan Fraser is David Greene, recruited by an elite academy just so he can play football. He is Jewish, which would typically disqualify him from admission, but the administrators are desperate. The movie does show the prejudice of private institutions, which were free to discriminate against whomever they wanted, especially country clubs, which only until very recently were just for straight, white, men, no women, gays or blacks. In any sense, David is willing to use the school just as it plans on using him. He doesn't tell anyone he is Jewish. He secretly prays in the campus chapel on the Jewish New Year, and listens with contempt as Dillon and his friends tell Jew jokes and think of Jews only in stereotypical terms.
David, by their own judgment, does not look Jewish, which is why they never realize he is until a drunken old man at an alumni party lets it slip, and Charlie overhears. Charlie lives in the shadow of his older brother and prestigious family, and hates that he cannot live up to the standards they have set for him. He feels like a failure. David's roommate Chris (O'Donnell) is a nice kid, but seems to be upset that David did not reveal his Jewishness from the start (as if such a thing should matter). There is a subplot involving a demanding, arrogant prick of a teacher, named Cleary, who very nearly drives a student to suicide, by always picking on him and hounding him. We see David romancing Sally (Amy Locane), who falls for him instead of Charlie, but breaks off their relationship after she learns he is a Jew. She claims she is mad he lied to her, but in reality, she simply does not want to date a Jew. Fraser is very good, in one of his earlier roles, a lot of intensity, and David always has our sympathy.
He is surrounded by other young actors who would later be stars, like Damon, Ben Affleck, and Chris O'Donnell. The anti-Semitism we see on display here seems harmless, quite a disservice to the not-so-harmless kind, which can and does harm innocent Jews every day, in the Middle East and elsewhere, and slaughtered them in Nazi Germany. The movie's heart is in the right place, it shows irrational anti-Semites who have never met Jews, but simply echo their parents' opinions of them, and it has a poor boy proving to be more virtuous and honest than any of his richy rich colleagues, but I think it is a poorly made film, that is not particularly effective, because it hits you over the head with its message, and manipulates it shamelessly and to the fullest.
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