High School High (1996)
A film review by Scott Renshaw
Copyright 1996 Scott Renshaw
HIGH SCHOOL HIGH ---------------- Grade: C- // Skip It
(Tri-Star)
Director: Hart Bochner. Screenplay: Robert LoCash, Pat Proft, Jerry Zucker. Producers: Jerry Zucker, Pat Proft, Gil Netter. Starring: Jon Lovitz, Tia Carrere, Mekhi Phifer, Louise Fletcher, Malinda Williams, Guillermo Diaz.
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (adult themes, profanity) Running Time: 86 minutes.
Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
Jon Lovitz stars in HIGH SCHOOL HIGH as Richard Clark, and it is indicative of how far the film strays from the dependable groan-worthiness of previous Zucker brothers projects (AIRPLANE!, THE NAKED GUN) that it misses one of its most obvious gags: there is nary a "Dick Clark" gag to be found. Obviousness was never really an issue for the Zuckers, because their modus operandi was a non-stop assault of puns, pratfalls and pop culture references, allowing every dud joke to be swallowed up by the next one in line. HIGH SCHOOL HIGH doesn't seem to have time for that kind of comic machine-gunning, because it is too busy with -- of all things -- a plot. And this is that rarity among contemporary films, one which needs less plot instead of more.
Lovitz's Clark is a prep school history teacher when the film begins, under the thumb of his father (John Neville), the school's domineering headmaster. Richard, however, has a dream of reaching and teaching kids where they need the most help, which leads him to take a job at Marion Barry High School (located just past the street sign marked "Inner City"). Richard finds almost everything working against him -- a burned-out principal (Louise Fletcher), an antagonistic gang leader named Paco (Guillermo Diaz) and indifferent students. However, he does have the principal's beautiful administrative assistant Victoria (Tia Carrere) on his side, and a belief that if he can get a well-respected student named Griff (Mekhi Phifer) to tune in, he can get through to everyone.
It should be made clear first of all that the extent of Zucker involvement in HIGH SCHOOL HIGH is David Zucker's participation as co-writer and co-producer (brother Jerry being too busy now making "serious" films like GHOST and FIRST KNIGHT). HIGH SCHOOL HIGH was directed by erstwhile B-actor and PCU director Hart Bochner, and he shows little aptitude for the kind of frame-filling humor which characterized other Zucker parodies. Nearly every gag is front and center here, providing little incentive to scour the background for throwaway bits. On the rare occasion when a joke is tucked away for discovery -- like a sign in a topless bar-cum-theater which promises "Next Week: All-Nude Ibsen" -- it is like a gift. Too much of the time, however, writers Zucker, Pat Proft and Robert LoCash measure out the laughs as though aware that there aren't that many to go around.
They also can't seem to decide what kind of laughs they are going for. I'm not going to suggest that low humor hasn't always played a significant role in Zucker films, since they were inspired largely by MAD Magazine, but there was usually the sense that they were writing dumb comedy for smart people, jackhammer-subtle but intricately absurdist. HIGH SCHOOL HIGH is not nearly as clever, aiming many of its gags at the same audience which Tri-Star is targeting with a hip-hop-heavy soundtrack. The number of jokes aimed at gays or lesbians runs in the high teens; the over-use or mis-use of urban slang runs a close second. The latter produces a few minor successes (Richard attempting to diagram the sentence "Yo, you wack punk" for his class), but the former begins to get repetitive and unpleasant very quickly.
The dependence on a soundtrack and the surprisingly straight-forward narrative often make HIGH SCHOOL HIGH feel less like a parody of DANGEROUS MINDS than a slightly more amusing remake of DANGEROUS MINDS. Actually, in some ways it resembles this year's THE SUBSTITUTE even more, with its sub-plot of drug dealing and administrative complicity, but THE SUBSTITUTE was a more subversive film. HIGH SCHOOL HIGH is not nearly hard enough on the cliched movies made for and about urban youth, perhaps afraid of insulting its own audience. With its cast a combination of comic actors like Lovitz and dramatic actors like Fletcher and Phifer, HIGH SCHOOL HIGH slides uncomfortably between mockery and schlockery. The surest sign of HIGH SCHOOL HIGH's spartan comedy is that it almost isn't worth staying through the closing credits, where the Zuckers usually tossed off half a dozen silly little references. It's just a basic crawl this time, which also sums up the pace of the film rather nicely.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 blackboard bungles: 4.
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