The original screenplay was written in 1995 by Scott Yagemann, a Los Angeles area high schoolsubstitute teacher for seven years. He wrote the screenplay after an incident when a violent transfer student had threatened to kill him and his family. Yagemann reported the threat to the authorities and the student was arrested. About a week later, he was called by the district attorney to testify against the student in a court of law, where the student was being prosecuted for stabbing a teacher's aide a year before. This annoyed Yagemann, who had not been told about it beforehand, and led to him writing the screenplay. He claimed that 90% of the film's material is based on incidents that had happened to him and other teachers in real life.[1][2]
Plot
Trevor Garfield is a high school science teacher in Brooklyn. Dennis Broadway, a gangster student to whom he had given a failing grade, threatens to murder him, writing the number 187 (the police code for homicide) on every page in a textbook. Garfield reports his concerns to the administration, who ignores Garfield's warning. Soon afterwards, Dennis ambushes Garfield in the school hallway, stabbing him in the back and side multiple times with a shiv.
Garfield survives and is shown resuming his teaching career as a substitute teacher fifteen months later. He relocates to the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles, but is assigned to another class of unruly students, including a Chicanotag crew by the name of "Kappin' Off Suckers" (K.O.S.). Their leader, Benny Chacón, a felon attending high school as a condition of probation, makes it clear to Garfield that there will be no mutual respect.
Tension mounts when another teacher, Ellen Henry, confides that Benny has also threatened her life, an action against which the administration of the school refuses to take action as they fear the threat of legal action. After Benny murders a rival tagger in cold blood, he disappears, and Benny's tag partner, César Sanchez takes over as leader. César continues to defy Garfields attempts to create order which starts with César being put on the spot to read, but being unable to properly read the textbook, followed by the theft of Garfield's watch another day. Garfield reports this to the principal who declines to act due to fear of a lawsuit by César. Garfield finds out the combination to César's locker and retrieves his watch. He shows César that he recovered it and suggests that they start over, which César declines to do.
Following several other incidents, César amps up the conflict between Garfield and the K.O.S. by killing Jack, Ellen's dog. Later after spraying cartoon graffiti depicting a dead dog, César is shot with a syringe filled with morphine attached to the end of an arrow. He passes out and wakes up to find one of his fingers removed. The hospital receives a letter with his finger, it now has "R U DUN" ("are you done?") tattooed upon it. Garfield asked this of César many times.
Later Garfield witnesses Rita Martínez, a student he is tutoring, facing abuse from the K.O.S. Rita drops out of school to escape the abuse. Garfield is eventually fired after administrators find out that he had Rita over to his house for a tutoring session due to the unsavory implications.
Benny's dead body is discovered in the Los Angeles River. César and the K.O.S. believe Garfield to be responsible for the killing. César and the K.O.S., inspired by the film The Deer Hunter, corner Garfield at his home to keep him from leaving town after losing his job and get him to confess to killing Benny and cutting off César's finger which he does without any hesitance. They force Garfield into a contest of Russian roulette with César. César, in a machismo mode, loads the revolver with two bullets. After each round, Garfield talks about the lost-cause lifestyle César has led. Garfield, on the penultimate round, takes his turn and survives. Instead of handing the weapon to César, Garfield takes the next turn and the weapon goes off; killing himself instantly. Driven by his sense of honor and enraged over the failure of his revenge, César insists on taking his rightful turn against the protests of his horrified friends and ends up killing himself.
On graduation day, Rita is shown to have completed her studies and successfully graduated along with the now former K.O.S. member Stevie, who is filled with remorse and feels disillusioned with the gang life. Rita offers a tribute to Garfield by reading an essay about him. The essay incorporates the theme of the pyrrhic victory. Paco, the only other surviving member of the K.O.S, drops out of school yet stays behind long enough to watch the graduation before disappearing into the city. A heartbroken Ellen resigns and leaves the school.
The closing narration cites a 1994 MetLife-Louis Harris Survey stating one in nine teachers has been attacked in school and 95 percent of those attacks were committed by students, as well as the movie being written by a teacher.[2][3]
On Rotten TomatoesOne Eight Seven has an approval rating of 30% based on reviews from 27 critics.[4]
Roger Ebert rated the film 2 out of 4 stars, complimenting the "strong and sympathetic performance" by Samuel L. Jackson and saying that the movie "has elements that are thoughtful and tough about inner-city schools" but it also contains "elements that belong in a crime thriller or a war movie". He also felt that the movie's "destination doesn't have much to do with how it got there".[5]
The film grossed $5.7 million domestically in its theatrical release.[6]
In retrospect Director Kevin Reynolds said the movie was a "great experience" and blamed the grim ending for the lukewarm reception.[7]
In an interview with Vulture, Samuel L. Jackson singled out One Eight Seven as his most underrated film:
“One Eight Seven was a serious subject that got kicked to the curb for some reason. I remember they were trying to get us on Oprah to talk about the plight of teachers in schools. And she was busy promoting Beloved, so she wouldn’t. 'I don’t do violence on my shows.' I said, 'B*tch, you just killed your g*ddamn daughter in your own room. The f*** you talking about? Give me a break.' And now prophetically teachers are getting jacked in schools every day. This movie spoke directly to that."
The film's soundtrack was released under the title Music from the Motion Picture 187 on July 29, 1997, through Atlantic Records. Unlike films like Dangerous Minds and The Substitute that dealt with similar subject matter, this soundtrack did not receive an urban music soundtrack. Instead the soundtrack was made up of trip hop, a combination of hip hop and electronica.
Fassett, Deanna L.; Warren, John T. "A Teacher Wrote This Movie": Challenging the Myths of "One Eight Seven" [movie review]. Multicultural Education, v7 n1 p30-33 Fall 1999. ISSN ISSN1068-3844. ERIC Number: EJ594392 - Information at ERIC
