After a failed mission in Cuba with three casualties, the mercenary Jonathan Shale (Tom Berenger) and his team composed by Joey Six (Raymond Cruz), Rem (Luis Guzmán), Wellman (Richard Brooks) and Hollan (William Forsythe) return to Miami. Meanwhile, the history teacher at the Columbus High School Jane Hetzko (Diane Venora) is threatened by the gangster Juan Lacas (Marc Anthony), who is the leader of the dangerous street gang Kings of Destruction. She reports the menace with her colleague Darrell Sherman (Glenn Plummer) to the Principal Claude Rolle (Ernie Hudson), but he does not take any attitude. When the scared Jane returns home, she meets he boyfriend Shale that was visiting her and they spend the night together. On the next morning, Shale has a meeting with the rogue lawyer Matt Wolfson (Cliff De Young) that offers a job to protect a shipment of drugs but Shale declines the offer. When he returns to Jane's apartment, he learns that she is jogging at the beach. He walks to meet her and save Jane from the attack of the strong punk Bull (Jim Warne) that breaks her kneecap and flees. She asks him to invite a substitute to replace her and Shale adopts the alias James Smith to replace Jane. Soon he learns that Lacas and Rolle are associated to the drug lord Johnny Glades (Rodney A. Grant) and using the school to store and distribute the drug in Miami. Shale summons his crew and decide to clean the school and eliminate the gangsters."The Substitute" is one of those action movies in the style of "Rambo" or "Death Wish" franchises that are brainless but in the same time highly attractive. The cast has Tom Berenger still in good shape in the role of the hero and many great villains. The story uses the violence of "Class of 1984", with a gang of delinquents threatening the teachers. For fans of this type of film, "The Substitute" does not disappoint. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "O Substituto" ("The Substitute")

Thank you, El Ray for helping me discover fun little gems like The Substitute here. A film about a mercenary becoming a substitute teacher, practically for sh!ts and giggles. It is packed with one liners, bada$$erary and a decent amount of action. But it is an odd bag of a film. The in-classroom scenes are truly awesome but the rest of the film feels like a dated family sitcom. But whatever, it works well and is fun regardless. It is a fun movie and I can see it being a guilty pleasure type of deal, if you have the fast-forward button handy. Yeah, it is a total grind house picture, without trying to be one.

This film came out three years after Sniper, and it suffers from a serious identity crisis.The film wants to be every good-teacher-cleans-up-bad-school movie you've ever seen. That pretty dominates the first 95% of the film. Great White Hope with some of Class of 1999 mixed in. Then, at the end of the film, it basically turns into Rambo/Sniper but set inside of a school.It's quite entertaining to watch Berenger discipline an unruly class. There are some references to race in the film relevant to its production year of 1996, including one of the black teachers asking Berenger as Mr Smith if he's trying to be some Great White Hope. The soundtrack is very engaging and the production values are convincing.The movie builds well, but wraps up very abruptly, despite being engaging and at least somewhat believable up until that point. A blond man (one of the anti-hero mercs) kicks white cocaine dust into the face of a Seminole Indian drug dealer, calling him Snow. This was strangely racist, but then that guy gets shot so I guess he gets his comeuppance. Then, three minutes later, he saves Mr Smith, his old friend, but we're supposed to feel empathy for his death. Chaotic to say the least. I think there's a good chance this film was wrecked in editing, possibly without the director's approval. At least the film has some surprises.I enjoyed the film, but it goes so seriously and inexplicably astray at the end that it ruined the entire film. There was already a major confrontation near the end, and they didn't need to turn it into Rambo Attends High School for yet another violent climax. This was especially annoying as Berenger starts to show a softer side as a teacher who makes progress relating the similarities of violent wars in American history to violence in American inner cities. Done properly, this film could've been a semi-landmark, but someone had to screw it up, and that in itself warrants investigation. It does compare warring countries to gangs, in a simplistic, but plausible way.This movie is a period museum piece because of its reflection of a time of excess in the USA and Hwood that the 21st Century has seen end. Now there are effects excesses that movies wallow in, this one was among the last from a period of combat choreography.gun battle excesses. Its not that a incoherent script couldn't get made today, but this premise would never get produced today.This film gets an 7 for acting, a 0 for ending, and an 8 for novelty and entertainment. Re-edited, it could be a 7 star film.

"FX" director Robert Mandel's urban crime thriller "The Substitute" fuses elements of "Blackboard Jungle" with "The Equalizer." In "Blackboard Jungle," a teacher (Glenn Ford) tangled with savage, inner-city youth. In the CBS-TV thriller series "The Equalizer," an urban security expert allowed his clients to resume life without fear from assailants.Tom Berenger stars as a covert operations specialist on holiday who finds himself back into the classroom to rumble with a drug czar and his killers. The action is as fast and as furious as one of the submachine guns fired in this larger-than-life, but exciting exercise in educational reform. Mandel and "Street Trash" scenarist Roy Frumkes, "Substitute 2" scribe Rocco Simonelli, and "Cat People" writer Alan Ormsby have created an entertaining, suspenseful, sometimes amusing, melodrama with a minor surprise or two. "Ghost Busters" star Ernie Hudson registers splendidly as a corrupt high school principal who abuses his authority by allowing sales of narcotics on his premises.An earnest, forthright teacher Jane Hetzko (Diane Venora of "True Crime") confronts high-ranking gang-banger Juan Lacas (Marc Anthony of "Hackers") during a campus brawl, and he doesn't like the way that she talks to him so he threatens her. Later, as Jane is jogging by herself along the beach, a thuggish Seminole confronts her and cracks one of her knee caps with a bat. Jane's off-again, on-again boyfriend Jonathan Shale (Tom Berenger of the "Sniper" movies)tangles briefly with the brute before the brute escapes. Jane lands in the hospital and Shale takes care of her. Shale calls for Jane's usual substitute, but the man isn't available. Instead, Shale gets one of his mercenary buddies, Rem (Luis Guzmán of "Anger Management"), to put him into the school's computer system as James Smith with three diplomas from prestigious Ivy League universities. Shale has the time to devote to Jane's problem, because his men and he have completed a mission that attracted too much international attention and he has to cool it for a while. Meantime, he keeps his surviving commandos in line and out of harm's way. A job to guard drug shipments comes up, but once our virtuous hero learns that he would be killing to ensure the safe passage of narcotics, he turns the job down cold and reprimands his comrade, Joey 6 (Raymond Cruz of "The Rock") for setting up the interview.Instead, Shale masquerades as a substitute school teacher when he cannot get an actual substitute for Jane. He assembles his team and tells them that where drugs are concerned, money can be found in large quantities. This serves as their inducement to mobilize their special skills. Along the way, another caring teacher, Mr. Darrell Sherman (Glenn Plummer of "Saw 2") gets in the way of the villains, particularly Claude Rolle (Ernie Hudson of "Ghost Busters") and pays the ultimate price. The heroes and the villains turn the high school into a battlefield. The villains have stashed a lifetime's worth of cocaine in the school's maintenance garage and Hollan (William Forsythe of "Once Upon A Time in America") rigs it up with explosives so when the bad guys go to retrieve it, they are blown up. Not all of the good guys survive this bullet-riddled shoot'em up. "The Substitute" ranks as an above-average thriller.