Freedom Writers Reviews

Erin herself is so unbelievably saintly -- and her fellow teachers so snivellingly evil -- that she's impossible to believe as anything more than an inspiration-bot.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5

While the makers of Freedom Writers may have kept to the facts, they neglected to keep it real.

Full Review | Original Score: 81/100

A movie you've seen plenty of times before, but never mind.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4

Swank, who exec produced the film, marches through the story with a curiously inappropriate grin on her face. No teacher in America could possibly smile this often.

A white teacher takes on a classroom full of nonwhite kids in Freedom Writers and proves that old adage: The perkier they are, the harder they fall.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4

Too preachy, too many tears.

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The film mixes unbearably hokey "my badness" material with something I didn't expect from a picture this threadbare: sensitivity.

Full Review | Original Score: C

At times, Freedom Writers invokes genuine emotions, but this derivative teacher-inspires-troubled-kids movie mostly just pries your eyes open and jerks the tears out.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4

One teacher can make a difference in a troubled student's life. I learned this from To Sir, with Love, Dangerous Minds and Van Halen's Hot for Teacher video.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4

LaGravenese ("The Horse Whisperer") has a tendency to sanitize every scene, and when he hits the audience's emotional sweet spot and a few tears begin to flow, you have the feeling that the release is unjustified.

Full Review | Original Score: C

The story feels like a rehash of movies we've seen, such as Stand and Deliver, Dangerous Minds and Take the Lead. If Swank's character weren't so saintly, the story might be more convincing.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4

Ironically, the film features almost zero teaching. Despite much pedagogical posturing, it doesn't teach us much, either.

Full Review | Original Score: C-

Like the troubled kids, [Freedom Writers] has the potential to succeed with a little work.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4

Doesn't add anything new to the formula, no matter how much of a hero Erin truly has become.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4

The film may be inspired by a true story, but it's a mishmash of scenes we've seen before, and for a film about original teaching methods, the storyline is surprisingly derivative and predictable.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5

Try as they might, the kids in Freedom Writers can't break free from Hollywood formula.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5

Freedom Writers confounds its own claims to veracity by coming across as a veritable textbook in itself -- a textbook of earnest, liberal, white-woman-in-the-blackboard jungle clichés.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4

Freedom Writers is another exceptional teacher scenario not so different from the norm.

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The only aspect of these flicks that's changed since the days of The Blackboard Jungle is that the leads have gotten prettier...and whiter.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5

Gee whiz, if Swank taught in the typical American school, there'd be no child left behind. They'd all be polishing apples and asking for homework.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4

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