Cheaters (2000)

Pretty Good

One of the worst movies I've ever seen

Intense, gripping, stylish and poignant

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

I was born and raised from a working class family in Chicago. I am also a Whitney Young alumni. Take one look at the school's website and you will learn that whites are the minority and that most people are from low SES or middle class backgrounds. This film's depiction of the Whitney Young was waaaaay off. Cheerleaders at the pep rally, matching outfits, and laptops for every student...LMAO! After viewing this film, I now understand what it's like to be on the other side of those "based on a true story" movies.In this movie there had to be an enemy. So, Whitney Young played the role. However, the real evil is the school system. But no one wants to talk about that. What this film displayed was the selfish and lazy attitudes of the cheaters, and their need to justify their behavior by blaming the kids who worked hard and won. (If people only knew the amount of time they put into studying for AD) What we should be paying attention to is how easy the children took almost no responsibility for what they did. Instead, transferring the blame to the opposing school. Rather, the film should have told the story of how a teacher took advantage of weak-willed teenagers to boost his ego, counter his life of inadequacy. He could have been a voice for the oppressed but chose to take the easy road and let the kids down.

I've seen this movie today on DVD and i found more than i expected. It's a great movie. Not only it deals with students who cheat and a teacher who helps them, but also the differences in a society. We say every one is equal, but this movie shows us that some are more equal. I totally agree with the idea that this things would never come up if those students were in a better school in a better part of the city. Let's face it. There is still discrimination among people. I don't approve cheating, but i got no harm from cheating. In this movie, we see that we can come over this discrimination even if we have to cheat. The fact is if they had taken that boy to the team, no one could claim they cheated. So it would be possible to cheat the system.

I saw this movie for the first time in 8th grade and thought it was great. Funny and entertaining, with a bit of a moral thrown in. Once I went to highschool my view changed somewhat, considering I went to (and am at) Whitney Young. It's been said here before, but the characterization is all wrong. Whitney has a majority of black students and is neither private nor in the suburbs. At the time the movie was made, Whitney was simply the best public school in the city (new rivals have cropped up in recent years), and so it developed a nucleus of extremely intelligent kids. For the most part they are not the privileged suburbanites portrayed in the movie, although there have been some families that would move into the city just to send their kids there. Anyways, it killed the moral for me, but it showed me a different fault in the Chicago Public schools, that good schools get help while smaller ones get forgotten. This was the story of a forgotten school fighting to get their name back into the light. They went about it the wrong way, but there is something to be learned from it. Or maybe not, considering the funding gap just seems to get worse.But if I forget all of this, ignore the realities, this is still a great movie.

This is a good film and I really like it. I really don't know why, but I'm keep on watching it. It's fun, yet it only just about cheating in the competition. But they have cheated because the people and their surrounding have pressurized them. Jeff Daniels as the teacher have to make a decision if he would allowed his student to cheat, he himself was pressurize by the fellow teachers and his mother saying he was up to nothing unlike his brother. Even after hard work they still fail. Of-course one would be disappointed. And when the chances come why not grab it. I would have cheated myself at least it would provoke the spirit of the team. After all the movie did bring out all the things it needed. And it seem people really like the movie.I do.Max: B+