Freedom Writers: Critic Reviews

Square, sincere, and proud of it.

In Freedom Writers Hilary Swank uses neediness to fine effect in a film with a strong emotional tug and smartly laid foundation.

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.

Offers a sort of Chinese food poignancy, the kind that may seem satisfying at the time but ultimately leaves us hungering for more, for something authentic. Maybe that's why we keep coming back.

The kids' individual triumphs seem satisfyingly hard-won.

Our eager-beaver heroine suffers the kids' sarcasm, fails to earn their respect by bringing in a Tupac tape, then wins them over in a crucial scene that, fact-based or not, rings as false as anything in Dangerous Minds.

An educational fantasy that happens to be mostly true.

This film fails to earn what Erin Gruwell earned in real life: credibility.

It's not a great movie, but at-risk teens could do a lot worse.

Freedom Writers, which has a lot to say about education and the flaws in the American public-school system, gets high marks -- for effort and for merit.

Hilary Swank gives a powerhouse performance as a maverick high school teacher in Freedom Writers, an often gripping and sometimes even inspiring film.

LaGravenese has incorporated some of the real students' piercingly honest diary entries and rounded up an engaging cast of unknowns and young actors (April Hernandez, Kristin Herrera, Hunter Parrish) to channel their anger and hopelessness.

Sure, we've been here and seen all of this before. But when it's this well done, we thoroughly enjoy seeing it again.

There's a straight-ahead spirit to Freedom Writers that lifts it above its too-many peers in the 'troubled youth' category of films.

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

Although Freedom Writers is the latest in a long line of saint-saves-students stories, it takes the bold approach of being earnest, honest and unafraid to be called naive. As a result, it's extremely affecting.

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.

An old-fashioned great-teacher-turns-bad-students-into-scholars story that ranks up there with Stand and Deliver.

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 cliches.

Freedom Writers is a tribute to individualism wrapped in the most conformist of packages, one of those pictures where the message of the tale is flatly contradicted by the manner of the telling.

For those who see it, the movie has a chance to connect. Freedom Writers is superior to what film-goers typically expect from an early January release.

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.

Despite occasional moments of inspiration, Freedom Writers simplistically focuses on maudlin highlights and glosses over the obstacles to rallying a dangerously disparate group of youths more accustomed to loathe than trust one another.

Corny? You bet. And worse when the plot veers into the glitz of a Dangerous Minds and the sappiness of a TV After School Special. But the movie, which Swank helped produce by using her clout as a two-time Oscar winner, gets to you.