True story of the "nonpermissive" -- some would say "fascist" -- New Jersey high-school principal, Joe Clark, whose tough anti-drug stance is backed up with a Louisville Slugger. Morgan Freeman, a fine actor fully capable of playing a human being, is engaged instead to play an unqualified hero figure, a sort of administrative Rocky Balboa, a speechifier rather than a fighter (though a fighter when necessary, too), and sometimes just a shouter and a bellower. (Director John G. Avildsen, who himself did the original Rocky, has had his head twisted round ever since: Slow Dancing in the Big City, The Karate Kid I and II.) Unlike Rocky, however, Joe Clark wins virtually every round, hardly blinking when tagged with an occasional jab. Some spectators, even so, might score his altercation with the school choral director -- "What good is Mozart gonna do a bunch of people who can't go out and get a job?" -- a bit differently than the filmmakers. With Robert Guillaume and Beverly Todd. (1989) — Duncan Shepherd
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