Dismissed

This movie is about every teacher's worst nightmare: a student who will not accept the grade he earned and will literally endanger the teacher's life and others until that grade is changed.

First off, the acting is remarkable. Dylan Sprouse plays the role of ambitious and top scholar Lucas, who soon is revealed to be the self-entitled high school senior. Sprouse effectively delivers the stoic face, the twitch of the eye, the steely curve of a smile. What we learn through his English teacher Mr. Baker's (Kent Osbourne) experience is that Lucas is no saint when his true unstable nature begins to unravel. Receiving a mere B+ instead of the A he believes he should have, Lucas begins targeting Mr. Baker's personal life, putting several people at risk, some fatal. His character takes on a bit of the unsteadiness we see in Apt Pupil's Todd Bowden and Swimfan's Madison Bell.

When Mr. Baker tries to tell the Principal, his wife, the authorities, he continues to run into resistance as none of them can bring themselves to believe that Lucas could be anything but good.

Believing that a person is flawless is mistake number one. Refusing to heed any aspect of Mr. Baker's accounts is mistake number two, another teacher nightmare where you are not given the benefit of the doubt and that anything you say is supplanted by the erroneous certainty that the student must be right. Poor Mr. Baker.

Just as Sprouse supremely dons the role of the psychopath, Osbourne successfully fulfills the role of the 'teacher-next-door', that teacher who loves his work and genuinely enjoys classroom discussion and reading his students' work. Mr. Baker is just a natural easy-going reputable teacher, and we quickly find that he is a likable guy.

This is a good suspense film with a memorable plot and great acting.

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