''One Eight Seven'' (also known as ''187'') is a 1997 American

crime thriller film Crime films, in the broadest sense, is a film genre inspired by and analogous to the crime fiction literary genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and its detection. Stylistically, the genre may overlap and combine ...

directed by Kevin Reynolds. It was the first top-billed starring role for Samuel L. Jackson, who plays a Los Angeles teacher caught with

gang A gang is a group or society of associates, friends or members of a family with a defined leadership and internal organization that identifies with or claims control over territory in a community and engages, either individually or collective ...

trouble in an urban high school. The film's name comes from the

California Penal Code The Penal Code of California forms the basis for the application of most criminal law, criminal procedure, penal institutions, and the execution of sentences, among other things, in the American state of California. It was originally enacted i ...

Section 187, which defines murder. The original screenplay was written in 1995 by Scott Yagemann, a Los Angeles area high school substitute 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.

Plot

Trevor Garfield is a high school science teacher in

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

. Dennis Broadway, a

gangster A gangster is a criminal who is a member of a gang. Most gangs are considered to be part of organized crime. Gangsters are also called mobsters, a term derived from '' mob'' and the suffix '' -ster''. Gangs provide a level of organization and ...

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 The San Fernando Valley, known locally as the Valley, is an urbanized valley in Los Angeles County, California. Located to the north of the Los Angeles Basin, it contains a large portion of the City of Los Angeles, as well as unincorporated ar ...

area of

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world ...

, but is assigned to another class of unruly students, including a

Chicano Chicano or Chicana is a chosen identity for many Mexican Americans in the United States. The label ''Chicano'' is sometimes used interchangeably with ''Mexican American'', although the terms have different meanings. While Mexican-American ident ...

tag 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 Probation in criminal law is a period of supervision over an offender, ordered by the court often in lieu of incarceration. In some jurisdictions, the term ''probation'' applies only to community sentences (alternatives to incarceration), such ...

, 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 unstable tag partner, César Sanchez takes over as leader. César embarks on a campaign of intimidation against Garfield which is started by the theft of Garfield's watch. 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. 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. Upon finding the finger, César finds the letters "R U DUN" ("are you done?") tattooed as a warning. 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. Benny's dead body is discovered in the

Los Angeles River , name_etymology = , image = File:Los Angeles River from Fletcher Drive Bridge 2019.jpg , image_caption = L.A. River from Fletcher Drive Bridge , image_size = 300 , map = LARmap.jpg , map_size ...

. 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 ''The Deer Hunter'' is a 1978 war drama film co-written and directed by Michael Cimino about a trio of Slavic-American steelworkers whose lives were upended after fighting in the Vietnam War. The three soldiers are played by Robert De Niro ...

'' trap Garfield at his home and get him to confess to killing Benny and cutting off César's finger. 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 Garfield instantly. Driven by his sense of honor and furious over the loss 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 A Pyrrhic victory ( ) is a victory that inflicts such a devastating toll on the victor that it is tantamount to defeat. Such a victory negates any true sense of achievement or damages long-term progress. The phrase originates from a quote from ...

. A heartbroken Ellen leaves the school. The closing narration cites a 1994

MetLife MetLife, Inc. is the Holding company, holding corporation for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (MLIC), better known as MetLife, and its affiliates. MetLife is among the largest global providers of insurance, Annuity (US financial produc ...

Louis Harris Louis Harris (January 6, 1921 – December 17, 2016) was an American opinion polling entrepreneur, journalist, and author. He ran one of the best-known polling organizations of his time, Louis Harris and Associates, which conducted The H ...

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.

Cast

* Samuel L. Jackson as Trevor Garfield * John Heard as Dave Childress *

Kelly Rowan Kelly Rowan (born October 26, 1965) is a Canadian film and television actress and former fashion model. A native of Ottawa, Rowan studied acting in London and New York City before working as a model. She was featured in the horror film '' The Gat ...

as Ellen Henry * Clifton Collins Jr. as César Sánchez * Tony Plana as Principal García *

Karina Arroyave Karina Arroyave (born July 16, 1969) is a Colombian-American actress and playwright. Best known as Bianca Walsh on ‘’As the World Turns’’ (1988-1994), Jamey Ferrel on ‘’ 24’’ (2001-2002), Meirce on ‘’The Blacklist’’ (2021- ...

as Rita Martínez *

Demetrius Navarro Demetrius Navarro is an actor, writer and director as well as the CEO of D Street Films. Career Actor His first professional acting job was for Luis Valdez’s theater company, El Teatro Campesino. Navarro made his film debut in '' Friday''. H ...

as Paco * Lobo Sebastian as Benito "Benny" Chacón *

Jack Kehler Jack Kehler (May 22, 1946 – May 7, 2022) was an American character actor. He was best known for his role of Marty, a landlord in ''The Big Lebowski''. He also appeared in ''Men in Black II'', ''The Last Boy Scout'', ''Point Break'', ''Wyatt Ear ...

as Larry Hyland * Jonah Rooney as Stevie Littleton *

Method Man Clifford Smith, Jr. (born March 2, 1971), better known by his stage name Method Man, is an American rapper, songwriter, record producer, and actor. He is known as a member of the East Coast hip hop collective Wu-Tang Clan. He is also half o ...

as Dennis Broadway *

Kathryn Leigh Scott Kathryn Leigh Scott (born Marlene Kringstad;Biography:Kathryn Leigh Scott". Retrieved on September 28, 2010 January 26, 1943) is an American television and film actress and writer who is best remembered for playing several roles on ''Dark Shadows ...

as Anglo Woman

Reception

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...

the film has an approval rating of 30% based on reviews from 27 critics.

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...

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". The film grossed $5.7 million domestically in its theatrical release.

Soundtrack

The film's soundtrack was released under the title ''Music from the Motion Picture 187'' on July 29, 1997 through

Atlantic Records Atlantic Recording Corporation (simply known as Atlantic Records) is an American record label founded in October 1947 by Ahmet Ertegun and Herb Abramson. Over its first 20 years of operation, Atlantic earned a reputation as one of the most im ...

. Unlike films like '' Dangerous Minds'' and ''

The Substitute ''The Substitute'' is a 1996 American crime action thriller film directed by Robert Mandel and starring Tom Berenger, Ernie Hudson, Marc Anthony, William Forsythe, Raymond Cruz and Luis Guzmán. It was filmed at Miami Sr. High school. Plo ...

'' that dealt with similar subject matter, this soundtrack did not receive an

urban music Urban contemporary music, also known as urban music, Hip hop music, hip hop, urban pop, or just simply urban, is a music radio format. The term was coined by New York radio DJ Frankie Crocker in the early to mid-1970s as a synonym for Black music ...

soundtrack. Instead the soundtrack was made up of

trip hop Trip hop (sometimes used synonymously with " downtempo") is a musical genre that originated in the early 1990s in the United Kingdom, especially Bristol. It has been described as a psychedelic fusion of hip hop and electronica with slow tem ...

, a combination of hip hop and

electronica Electronica is both a broad group of electronic-based music styles intended for listening rather than strictly for dancing and a music scene that started in the early 1990s in the United Kingdom. In the United States, the term is mostly used to ...

. ; Track listing

References

External links

* * *
Interview with Scott Yagemann, the creator
{{Kevin Reynolds 1997 films 1990s crime drama films Films about educators Hood films Icon Productions films 1990s Spanish-language films Warner Bros. films Films directed by Kevin Reynolds Films produced by Bruce Davey Films scored by Michael Stearns American crime drama films Films set in New York City Films set in Los Angeles 1997 drama films 1990s English-language films 1990s American films