VeteranLight I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Pluskylang Great Film overall

Beanbioca As Good As It Gets

Cristal The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Saeed Mohammadi Set in East Los Angeles, 1982, Stand and Deliver tells the story of Jaime Escalante (Edward James Olmos), an enthusiastic mathematics teacher, who facing difficulties and racial discrimination, decides to teach his class Calculus and prepare his students for one of the toughest nationwide college credit exams, which only 2% of students can pass. The pivotal element helping the creation of documentary-like style of the film and bringing the challenging essence of it to the real life, is the remarkable actor in the center of the film: Edward James Olmos. Olmos, a professional actor with previous experiences on the silver screen of cinema and glass screen of TV utilizes his potentials as a Hispanic-American and also as an actor who knows the medium to give the role what it takes to look real for the audience. Ramon Menendez, director and co-writer of the film with Tom Musca, are both of Hispanic origins and they grew up in the same East L. A. area where the film takes place. They have done a great job preparing Olmos with back story and additional information on how to act. Keeping in mind that Stand and Deliver is a drama where the dramatic situation is created between characters, not between characters and environment, an organization etc., there is a huge amount of concentration on the students. In this aspect, fortunately, the roles are played delicately by young actors and actresses, all like Olmos and the director, from Hispanic origins. They all bring their characters to life, smoothly and profoundly believable. The core of student pole in the film is Angel Guzman (Lou Diamond Phillips). He is a rebellious teenager, a gang member and wears sunglasses and hair net in the class. Only after his teacher threatens them about their scary future as an uneducated minority in American society, he decides to change his attitude gradually and study, and later in the film shows a great potential in solving difficult math problems. Diamond Phillips, being 26 at the time of making the film, balances his act with 41 year old Olmos, a true professional. This counterpoint gives the film a true sense of tension at one time and stable equilibrium at another. The screenplay fails at developing side characters and this failure is intensified with the low budget of this project. Musca and Menendez decide to deepen the perspective on lives of the students attending Escalante's class, their problems and how they deal with them. This, derails the story from its main path, which is the concentration and effort Escalante and his students put to the calculus exam. Each and every time the story develops a situation about one side character it disturbs the narrative of a group facing a problem. As a matter of fact, film suffers greatly from a bi-polar situation: one pole focuses on the relationship between a teacher and his students, the other pole focuses on a group, consisting of an inspiring teacher and young rebellious students, encountering a tough and hard exam, and the film fails to concentrate on one of these poles at the same time. The film is never in peace and always en route between these two poles. This, has caused the film to be torn up in two separate and unfortunately not-so-well matched pieces. On the other hand, the low budget has affected the film negatively. Menendez could limit its film more to interiors rather than exteriors, but what we see is that in addition to a variety of exteriors, there are numerous interiors showed in the film. Menendez started his career as a film director with Stand and Deliver and the blame could go to his lack of experience. But the film disappoints audiences with showing real life; it seems that it wants to show real life situations but shows poorly designed and executed versions of real life. The worst and not acceptable scenes are ones dealing with Angel's gangster friend. When they go to sabotage a store, it is expected to show in details how they get the job done, but instead in a long shot and a with a modest panning camera, absolutely inappropriate for an action scene, the event is portrayed, completely unable to imply the tension embodied in the current act. What the film toils to discuss is the future of the Hispanic minority in an utterly unjust society, where you are blamed and questioned, even if you have tried your best and you have gained righteously. And Hispanics in this film are representative for all minorities and immigrants who live righteously and always there is a kind of suspicion about them. They are all unwanted people and no one can tolerate their success. In scene we can see that the teacher says "If this were Beverly Hills High, they wouldn't have sent you two to investigate". Stand and Deliver depicts the current situation and explains the problems and obstacles and the solution it suggests is to fight the system from within. In this film's view, the only way is, to become part of the system and gradually change it, until it is not unjust anymore. The only option is studying and becoming accepted by the rest of society, because grades are race-less and speak for themselves. Passing an exam will open doors, but many people who are already in the system want them to be closed to minorities. That's why Escalante wears his students out; he sees no bright future for them as a neglected and ignored minority, unless they prove themselves. Escalante uses various methods to inspire his students varying from reverse psychology to entertaining them by bringing a butcher knife and apples to teach them the concept of division and percentage. By all means Escalante wants to make one point: to waken their potentials and prepare them to be themselves. It is the greatest lesson he gives them all. Actually this was one big lesson for all minorities.

Taylor Orr Stand and Deliver is an American drama film based on a true story. it was released on March 11, 1988 and was directed by Ramón Menéndez. Jaime Escalante is the high school math teacher who hopes to start a Calculus class and teach "unqualified" students to pass the national AP Exam. He faces many struggles from the cultural and societal standards that the students have been unfairly labeled with. However, he and his class prevails despite the many doubters. The most powerful scene is when they retake the AP test. This scene is powerful because it provides a sense of determination and taking a STAND for what is right despite all odds. The scene that suggests the films ultimate purpose is when Señor Escalante is in the hospital and his estudiantes remind us to never give up on people because they remind us that we as a human race should never give up on or neglect people that are less fortunate.This extends to the injustice of free trade and how prosperous nations and mega corporations disregard the well- being of third world citizens and take advantage of their labor. If these businesses and economies were more like Jaime Escalante they would be more supportive of fair trade. In conclusion, the life of a factory worker in Indonesia is just as valuable as the life of the CEO of Nike.

mehdimohammadi7721 "My students learned that, by trying hard nothing changes…" Jamie EscalanteStand and Deliver is an inspirational movie written by the minorities, played by the minorities and directed by the minorities. The movie depicts the limitations and drawbacks of one of many minority groups in America. The movie shows that being a minority in America- a country which is known worldwide for its tolerance and flexibility towards people from different cultures- automatically puts you in a "special" category in the society that treats you differently from the rest of the population. Even if you work hard and bring the best of yourselves, you will still face many challenges from the society that directly points its finger of accusation and discrimination towards you. Stand and Deliver not only identifies these problems but also shows in many occasions that when you are a minority in a country dominated by white majorities, the system fails to recognize even the basic needs and rights which everyone is entailed to, such as education and employment. The protagonist of Stand and Deliver is a middle aged man of Latino ancestry named Jamie Escalante. He is a computer science teacher who due to the lack of enough equipment (computers) is told by the school authorities to teach "basic math" to the dropout prone students of Garfield High School. This is clearly a downgrade and Mr. Escalante is aware of it. When he enters the class, few students recognize his presence and he is largely ignored be the majority of the class. However he asks the students to take their seats. The graffiti all over the class makes the viewer to witness the impact and the active presence of Latino gangs on the youngsters' lives. The class is crowded with different types of students: Chicanos who can barely speak English, young Latinos with adopted "American" appearances, and even several young Mexicans who seem to be affiliated with Latino gangster groups. What strikes the most is the age of the students, as they look older than average American high school students, which signifies their previous failed attempts in graduation. Throughout the movie we will find out that Mr. Escalante was an employer of a company with decent wage, but had quit his job in order to help the Latino community to better their lives through teaching. By becoming a high school teacher with significantly lower paycheck, we can assume that Mr. Escalante is not looking for fame or money, but rather is concerned with the fact that many of his people are sidelined with poverty, crime, discrimination, maltreatment and many other challenges that constantly threaten these minority groups. During his educational crusade, Mr. Escalante faces many challenges and difficulty, such as students' reluctance to learn any school related material, let alone a difficult and complex science in math and later "Calculus". In order to start the fire of knowledge within the uncooperative students, Mr. Escalante uses everyday examples and very tangible instances to draw the attention of the students to math, and he is successful. One of the challenges that our protagonist faces is a Latino woman who is an official school authority and constantly accuse Mr. Escalante of giving false hope to the children and even in one instance "allegedly" writes an anonymous letter to him and "indirectly" asks Mr. Escalante to resign from his post as the high school "calculus" teacher. This signifies the fact that even among the minorities there are people and groups who act as the barrier to younger Latinos' success in life. These people consciously or unconsciously set major obstacles in the way of youngsters by taking the luxury of "free will" and "choice" away from them. We see throughout the movie that Mr. Escalante sacrifices many things in his life such as having a better job with better wage, spending time with his family, and even he put his health at risk for the sake of his student's success at the "AP Calculus" national exam. Another thing which was depicted in Stand and Deliver was the concept of "Identity Loss". If we consider the high school students as the "microcosm" of Latino community, we can notice many instances of identity loss among them. Most notably, the way they dressed, their "western" hairstyle, their western manners towards their teacher and even among themselves, their eating habits and many other instances all signify the fact that "Identity Loss" was a major issue among the students and therefore the Latino community respectively. It seemed that, the students only adopted the negative aspect of American modern culture and ignored their own cultural roots. Even Mr. Escalante is aware of this phenomena and thus reminds the students of the great achievements that their "ancestors" had accomplish such as mathematics and Calculus, which is long been forgotten among the Latinos themselves as many of them are alien to their original roots and culture. There is no doubt that the movie is well constructed and is a deep cry coming from the very depths of minorities' hearths; but Stand and Deliver is prone to criticism. The movie in terms of giving information on how the students all committed the same mistakes and chose the wrong answer fails to give credible insights and therefore keeps the viewer uninformed about this particular instance. In the end it is worth mentioning that Stand and Deliver stands as a brilliant movie who depicts the existing problem of minorities in the "land of opportunity" and identifies the everyday challenges that the Latino community along with many other minority groups face and delivers the message of hope and freedom of choice for the people of minorities.

batroc2700 Great movie. EJO as the main man really stood and delivered. It's motivating to get out from what you were born into, to strive for more.That's what we all want, to be better, for ourselves, for our Familias.This movie, Stand and Deliver, along the likes of Take The Lead, shows what can be achieved if you work hard enough, whether it's math or dance, just concentrate and just go for it and keep at it. Just maybe you'll get something along the ways.EJO: grade A Stand and Deliver: grade A Mandatory curriculum