The Chocolate War (1988)

The greatest movie ever made..!

Perfectly adorable

Dreadfully Boring

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

The Chocolate War is top quality and deals with a range of themes in a private boy's school...power, corruption, the state, conformity. And that's all within the setting of a chocolate fund raiser.Some reviewers have criticized the ending because it's not faithful to the book, and fair enough. But I liked the ending and as someone wrote, it's akin to if you can't fight city hall, join 'em. That's what Jerry Renault (Ilan Mitchell-Smith) did when he beat up Archie Costello (Wallace "CSI" Langham) in the boxing ring.The soundtrack is haunting and it was never released commercially, but you can get the songs from other sources.The acting is top notch and given the small budget (I think only $170,000), Keith Gordon did a masterful job directing this feature.

The annual fund raiser at a parochial boy's school becomes a battleground between integrity and peer pressure when a lone freshman defies authority by refusing to join the mandatory chocolate sale, calling down the wrath of both his megalomaniac headmaster and an omnipotent secret society of upperclassmen. Disregarding the techno-pop sound track the best that can be said about this murky allegorical drama is that it makes a sincere attempt to avoid standard teen movie clichés. But whatever message it might have had is camouflaged by the trendy, self-conscious photography (fancy POV camera moves, slow motion flashbacks) and a lack of definition to the campus background. The characters, as a result, all seem to be moving in a vacuum, which makes for a curiously uninvolving film.

At best this movie is a pastiche of clichés. When there's no useful examination of motivations, simply substitute long glances into the near distance and play some maudlin electronic music. By and large the performances make do with this grotesquely awful material - but mostly it's a stinking mess. One example: The scene of a phone call between the "bad" guy and the "hero" features the bad dude listening to music... hmmm.. what type of music does every director play to indicate the character is very very smart - but evil? Of course! Classical music! Sure it's a little jarring competing with the rest of the ethno/electro soundtrack... but gosh darn it - dat villain is pure evil's I tell ya- PURE EVIL! ANd HEY! wouldn't ya know? - he's also somewhat effeminate! Yeh - I bet they'vee never had an effeminate, conniving villain - let's make him that way! zzzzzzzzzzzz.....Only thing missing from this "villian" was the British accent and a constantly stroked white cat. Seriously though - this movie was *BAD* for all the wrong reasons. Just steaming dreck. Stay away from this lump.

Considering the powerful and harshly real novel by Robert Cormier, this Keith Gordon film falls short of the mark. It lacks the absolute power and tragic pointlessness of the book. There are some good performances, but I felt Glover was miscast as Brother Leon.The film does a good job siding us against Archie and for Jerome, but I did not feel this was necessary. Archie is not the only, and hardly the worst, villain.The ending, which does not comply with that of Cormier's novel, defeats the whole purpose of the story. Evil can, and will in many circumstances, win over good. This movie lacked that harsh finish it needed.Friday, February 8, 1991 - Television