Fans of comic satires like Airplane! and Naked Gun should find themselves right at home with a 1996 comedy called High School High.
The film stars Jon Lovitz as Richard Clark, a teacher at a well- known private school run by his father, who, in order to get out from under his father's thumb, decides to take a job teaching at Marian Barry High School, a tough inner-city high school where most of the students are barely literate. The simple story finds Clark working to raise the GPA's of his students in order to win a citywide school contest while pursuing romance with an attractive co-worker (Tia Carerre).
This film takes pot-shots at films like The Blackboard Jungle and Dangerous Minds, but does it in an outrageous way, but that is to be expected from a film like this. As a matter of fact, David Zuker, one of the geniuses behind Airplane! was one of the contributors to the screenplay here.
As expected, the gags come fast and furious and Lovitz plays his role with just enough of a straight face that makes most of the silliness going on around him funnier than it should be (though Lovitz is no Robert Hays). There are some fun supporting turns from Louise Fletcher as the hard-nosed school principal, Mekhi Pfifer as a troubled student, and Guillermo Diaz as a gang leader, but it is the lightning-swift tempo of the comic gags that keeps this one relatively entertaining for most of its ride.
The film stars Jon Lovitz as Richard Clark, a teacher at a well- known private school run by his father, who, in order to get out from under his father's thumb, decides to take a job teaching at Marian Barry High School, a tough inner-city high school where most of the students are barely literate. The simple story finds Clark working to raise the GPA's of his students in order to win a citywide school contest while pursuing romance with an attractive co-worker (Tia Carerre).
This film takes pot-shots at films like The Blackboard Jungle and Dangerous Minds, but does it in an outrageous way, but that is to be expected from a film like this. As a matter of fact, David Zuker, one of the geniuses behind Airplane! was one of the contributors to the screenplay here.
As expected, the gags come fast and furious and Lovitz plays his role with just enough of a straight face that makes most of the silliness going on around him funnier than it should be (though Lovitz is no Robert Hays). There are some fun supporting turns from Louise Fletcher as the hard-nosed school principal, Mekhi Pfifer as a troubled student, and Guillermo Diaz as a gang leader, but it is the lightning-swift tempo of the comic gags that keeps this one relatively entertaining for most of its ride.