Philadelphia Daily News from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 58

PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS Page 58 Friday. April 15. 1988 i i i i i 4 MOVIE REVIEW STAND, DELIVER AND CHEER MO VIE REVIEW 3 BAD BOYS, 1 BAD FILM through "To Sir, With Love" and "Up the Down Staircase," to last year's "The Principal," a Hollywood staple has been the story of an idealistic young teacher who comes into a ghetto school and, against all odds, makes a difference. "Stand and Deliver" has all the conventions of the genre: the initial harassment of the teacher (his first day at Garfield, Escalante's car radio gets stolen), the tough kid who for the first time takes an interest in school (here played by Lou Diamond Phillips, who was Ritchie Valens in "La the insensitive bureaucracy, the underlying belief that if only someone would just pay attention to these kids, they'd pay attention back. What makes the film special is its depiction of Escalante.

Edward James Olmos (Lieutenant Castillo of "Miami went the full Robert DeNiro route here: he gained 40 pounds and had his hair "thinned" By BEN YAGODA Daily News Movie Critic Dn 1982. 18 students from Garfield High in East Los Angeles passed the Advanced Placement calculus examination, giving them college credit for the course. They were all students of a Bolivian-born math teacher named Jaime Escalante. To appreciate the scope of the accomplishment, bear in mind that the AP test is so difficult that only 2 percent of all high school seniors even attempt it, much less pass. And bear in mind that Garfield, almost all of whose students are Chicano, is terrible school, so understaffed and demoralized at the time that the Los Angeles Board of Education was considering taking away its Now put this in your pipe and smoke it Every year since "82, the number of Garfield students passing the AP calculus test under Esca-lante's guidance has gone up.

This spring, some ISO students will take it; nearly all should pass. There are only three high schools in the country, all of them in wealthy districts, where more students pass the test than at Garfield. What Escalante has done is so amazing that the original title of "Stand and Deliver," the movie that tells his story, would not have overstated the case. That title was "Walking on Water." As a story, "Stand and Deliver" does not break new ground. From "The Blackboard Jungle" (1955), By BEN YAGODA Daily News Movie Critic The collaboration sounds great: Dennis Hopper, Robert Duvall, Sean Penn.

They are, as a "Premiere magazine cover story about the film they've made together calls them, "Hollywood's Bad Boys," a trio of rebels with talent Unfortunately, the only thing the bad boys have concocted is a bad movie. 7 It's called "Colors," and the title indicates that it may have preceded from a good idea. The film Hopper directed, Penn and Duvall star is about cops on the gang detail in Los Angeles, where the problem of gang violence has reached epidemic proportions. The idea is that just as gang members have their badges of identity and loyalty their "colors" so do Edward James Olmos is a teacher in "Stand and Deliver" the police. To succeed, this idea needs two things: an understanding of gang members and an understanding of cops.

"Colors" shows neither. Penn and Duvall play two partners, the one young and impetuous, the other wizened iff. i I Penn and cautious, with just a year to go before he can collect his pension. (Guess which one dies at the end of the movie.) The film takes them through a series of confrontations, some of them dramatic, others less so, with two rival gangs. The actors play their parts well.

Penn's performance is particularly well-shaded: he's even gotten his mouth to behave the way Duvall's does, a nice touch that emphasizes the father-son theme. The problem is that there's little to more closely resemble the physically unimposing Escalante, whose wardrobe runs to golf jackets, cloth caps and pocket protectors. He also spent dozens and dozens of hours talking with the teacher and watching videotapes of him at work. The triumphant result is not so much a performance as an inhabitation. Olmos' scenes in the classroom are riveting.

They show a truly inspired, very nearly possessed teacher who clearly understands that desperate times call for desperate measures. And so Escalante coaxes, cajoles, badgers his kids. He presents strange analogies that somehow strike chords. He makes the students chant, "A negative times a negative equals a positive," over and over again, and he makes them sign a contract that they will do at least 30 hours of homework a week and come to school early and on Saturdays. It's a marvelous, detailed performance that sticks in the memory, down to Escalante's shambling walk and the strange sing-song lilt in his voice.

"Stand and Deliver," which was directed by Ramon Menendez from a screenplay by him and Tom Musca, does other things well, too. Menendez shows a nice light touch in adumbrating the lives of Escalante's students in one or two details or lines of dialogue, especially impressive since this is his first feature. The film never shovels on the sentiment, which surely must have been a temptation from start to finish. It is also a little sparing with information. The filmmakers leave to our imagination what motivated Escalante to leave his job at a computer company for a post at Garfield at half the salary, how he got to be so singu- -lar a teacher, how his family dealt with his obsessions (in the film, they are depicted as little more than well-scrubbed and concerned-looking extras).

Nor are we told whether success on the AP calculus test has translated into success in life for Escalante's students. This would seem to be an key point. But never mind. This is a "Rocky" without any cut lips, a story of hope and glory in a strange world of the axis and differential equations. "Stand and Deliver" makes you want to stand up and cheer.

If uu shape or substance to the film, no reason why any particular confrontation should come at any particular time. Nor is there any sense that the movie, which was written by Michael Schiffer, is an especially insightful look at the subcultures Duvall it's dealing with. An episode of "Hill Street Blues" gives more of the flavor of cops under pressure. And while I don't know that much about gangs, I do know something about movie cliches. "Colors" is full of them.

The result is an uncomfortable blend between attempted gritty realism and TV-grade cop shtick (an effect heightened by numerous car chases and Herbie Hancock's "Man-nix'Msh score). If the bad boys really wanted to kick some tail, couldn't they have started by rounding up some better material? NEW JERSEY THEATRES BmttHrw mt Grami Run WsM 112 Of Ht t1 Cottmmn A HustUm, N.E. Prmm. SOO M. Boule 73.

anion HJ STAND AND DELIVER: A drama starring Edward James Olmos and Loo Diamond Phillips. Directed by Ramon Menendez. Screenplay by Ramon Menendez and Tom Musca. Running time: 103 minutes. A Warner -Brothers release.

At area theaters. Parental gulda: Rated PG. Bad language. COLORS: An action drama starring Robert Duvalt and Sean Penn. Directed by Dennis Hopper.

Screenplay by Michael Schiffer. Running time: 120 minutes. An Orion release. At a'ea theaters. Parental guide: Rated R.

Lots of. -shooting and swearing. IUO, ffcn JOS tip IHonl3om-rnltt 5'30 Snow 2:5) 4pttora Matt, Oeptfo'd. HJ CHECK LOCAL PAPERS fOR SHOWTIMES.