Rotten Tomatoes
Submit search Movies Tv shows RT App News Showtimes

Light It Up

Play trailer Poster for Light It Up R 1999 1h 39m Drama Play Trailer Watchlist
Watchlist Tomatometer Popcornmeter
40% Tomatometer 48 Reviews 76% Popcornmeter 5,000+ Ratings
The topical story of a group of high school students who form a protest when they become fed up with their school's poor conditions. After a shot is accidentally fired and a police officer is wounded, the resulting stand-off results in a media frenzy that pits the dirt-digging media against the well-intentioned students.
Watch on Fandango at Home Stream Now

Where to Watch

Light It Up

Light It Up

What to Know

Critics Consensus

Soon into the student uprising, the story starts to feel like a warmed over after-school special.

Read Critics Reviews

Critics Reviews

View More
Andy Seiler USA Today 01/01/2000
3/4
Crackling dialogue, surprising intelligence and an emotional wallop. Go to Full Review Mick LaSalle San Francisco Chronicle 01/01/2000
3/4
A deluge of movies is set to be released in the next three weeks. One that should not be lost in the flood is Light It Up. Go to Full Review Roger Ebert Chicago Sun-Times 01/01/2000
2.5/4
The problem is the movie is too predictable--so predictable that it keeps it from truly generating suspense. Go to Full Review David Ehrenstein New Times 10/03/2017
... it's this sense of the "real" that not only keeps Light It Up lively but that marks it -- for all its visual flair -- as happily out of step with a zeitgeist enamored of naught but money and notoriety as the wildly overhyped millennium turns. Go to Full Review Chuck O'Leary Fantastica Daily 10/09/2005
1/5
Emanuel Levy EmanuelLevy.Com 08/11/2005
2/5
Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

View More
08/11/2014 terrible script for a workable premise, it's over-thinking and bad acting that sinks this Titanic full of high-voltage names.. See more 09/19/2013 "Usher" Raymond what a joke. See more 07/05/2013 Very suspenseful, however, this movie was awful! It kind of makes the precedent that if you don't get what you want you can break the law (i.e. hold someone hostage as they did in the movie). This would have been much more touching if it had a better story line. See more 01/26/2013 It seems like a very goodbmovie. See more 03/03/2012 Philip Martin, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette "...isn't so much a bad movie as an unfinished movie" These are the best words to describe such movie See more 01/09/2012 Good plot, bunch of youngs stars, and emotional ending. See more Read all reviews
Light It Up

My Rating

Read More Read Less WRITE A REVIEW EDIT REVIEW POST RATING

Cast & Crew

View All

Craig Bolotin

Director

Usher

Lester Dewitt

Forest Whitaker

Officer Dante Jackson

Rosario Dawson

Stephanie Williams

Robert Ri'chard

Zacharias 'Ziggy' Malone

Judd Nelson

Ken Knowles

More Like This

View All
Pups 90% 73% Pups Watchlist The Sweet Hereafter 98% 86% The Sweet Hereafter Watchlist American History X 84% 96% American History X Watchlist Butterfly 96% 91% Butterfly Watchlist The King Is Alive 61% 58% The King Is Alive Watchlist Discover more movies and TV shows. View More
View All

Light It Up

Light It Up (1999) (Left to right) ROBERT RI'CHARD, ROSARIO DAWSON, CLIFTON COLLINS JR., SARA GILBERT and USHER RAYMOND get their message out to the world. Police officer FOREST WHITAKER confronts USHER RAYMOND in the school hallway as ROBERT RI'CHARD looks on. VANESSA L. WILLIAMS plays a determined hostage negotiator. (Left to right) USHER RAYMOND, ROBERT RI'CHARD, and ROSARIO DAWSON observe the deplorable conditions in their battered inner-city school. View more photos

Movie Info

Synopsis The topical story of a group of high school students who form a protest when they become fed up with their school's poor conditions. After a shot is accidentally fired and a police officer is wounded, the resulting stand-off results in a media frenzy that pits the dirt-digging media against the well-intentioned students.
Director
Craig Bolotin
Screenwriter
Craig Bolotin
Distributor
20th Century Fox
Production Co
Fox 2000 Pictures, Edmonds Entertainment
Rating
R (Violent Content|Language)
Genre
Drama
Original Language
English
Release Date (Theaters)
Nov 10, 1999, Wide
Release Date (Streaming)
Sep 18, 2012
Box Office (Gross USA)
$5.9M
Runtime
1h 39m
Sound Mix
Surround, Dolby SR, Dolby Digital, Dolby A, Dolby Stereo
Aspect Ratio
Flat (1.85:1)