Cheaters (TV 2000)

Eleven students conspire with their teacher to cheat on an academic competition.

Director:

John Stockwell

Writer:

John Stockwell

Stars:

Jeff Daniels, Jena Malone, Paul Sorvino

Nominated for 1 Primetime Emmy. Another 3 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Jeff Daniels	...	Dr. Gerard Plecki
Jena Malone	...	Jolie Fitch
Paul Sorvino	...	Constantine Kiamos
Luke Edwards	...	Darius Bettus
Blake Heron	...	Matt Kur
Dov Tiefenbach	...	Irwin Flickas
Dan Warry-Smith	...	Paul Kurgan
Anna Raj	...	Agnieska Maryniarczyk
Dominik Podbielski	...	Dominik Wesolowski
Ned Eisenberg	...	Robert Clifford
Robert Joy	...	Larry Minkoff
Lenka Peterson	...	Mrs. Plecki
Alex Poch-Goldin	...	Jerry Marconi (as Alex Poch Goldin)
Karen Glave	...	Corrine Davis
Marcia Bennett	...	Joan Isenberg

Storyline

In the fall of 1994, a teacher at Chicago's run-down Steinmetz High recruits seven students for an academic decathlon team. They work long hours, preparing for the February regional event, won for ten straight years by a privileged, preppy school. Steinmetz finishes just well enough to be invited to the state meet. When a team member steals a copy of the state test, the teacher and kids face a dilemma: to remain honest, or to cheat and score a victory for kids in underfunded schools. When they do well, they must face a withering barrage of investigations, accusations, lawyers' lies, and reporters' intrusions. Is it all worth it? What lessons does cheating teach?

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Plot Keywords:

teacher | cheating | competition | chicago illinois | motivation | 

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Taglines:

Putting The System To The Test

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Genres:

Drama

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for language

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

20 May 2000 (USA)

Also Known As:

A Grande Farsa

Filming Locations:

Central Tech. High School, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Company Credits

Production Co:

Nitelite Entertainment, De Passe Entertainment, Home Box Office (HBO)

Technical Specs

Runtime:

108 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The real-life Dr. Gerald Plecki was paid a consulting fee during the film's production.

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Goofs

When Dr. Plecki and the students are watching "Stand and Deliver" at his house, the scenes from that movie are shown out of order in "Cheaters".

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Quotes

Dr. Gerald Plecki: I'm going to switch you and Dominik for the state. You had the lowest scores in the regional competition, so he's gonna compete at state.
Irwin Flickas: That's not fair. No one told me you couldn't choose more than one answer. It's called multiple choice!

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Connections

Features Stand and Deliver (1988)

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Soundtracks

"Look Who's Perfect Now"
Written by Gary Clark, Eric Pressly, Keely Hawkes
Performed by Transister
Courtesy of Interscope Records
Under License From Universal Music Special Markets/Virgin Records Ltd.

User Reviews

Insightful movie about moral values

Sadly, for sake of moral insanity on this world, the best part of this movie is actually when the group is working on how to cheat.

I will explain this, in further detail.

When confronted with an impossible task of defeating a Senior decathlon group who nobody can, a suburb group lead by a rebel professor, having found a copy of the next decathlon exams decide to cheat.

The movie is filled with moral dilemmas, trying to balance its way out of it with real insightful ideas on how society scheme is not just "black and white" where good moral is to do it right and cheat is satanic.

The best moments in the movie are related to how the team moral values plays out and the fantastic aspect of this movie is specially dedicated on how good the team work when they are together, it is a very contradiction of terms, to see the team working so good together when they are actually trying to cheat.

Sad is that society is really preachy, society is not nice and never was, cheating is only a part of the equation and this is beautifully portrayed in the movie, for example when the guys are subjected to the worst prejudice comments from the people, when the people suspect of cheating, prejudice is far worse than cheating an exam but society doesn't see it that way, putting the team against each other in a police type interrogatory is far worse than cheating, telling lies about your friends to get what you want is also worse than cheating,but, society approves because it serves the purpose of maintaining the status-quo.

When you balance the movie out, it is clear what the message is, the education system is flawed,I for one identify much more with this cheaters than with the whole system of education. Outside of school copying and helping each other in a subject is called collaboration, inside school, this is called cheating, working as a group, helping each other inside an exam is called cheating, doing this exact same thing on a corporation is called "group-work" and as a matter of fact, it is highly well paid in corporations like Valve and Google for example.

Cheaters is a wonderful movie, really, this guys does bring a very important moral dilemma in which, sometimes, something that seems "wrong" is not so and some things that everyone knows to be right, are, VERY wrong.

An unjust competitive system of education which compels young people to take each other's eyes out for a score is NOT right, a system that encourage prejudice, that encourage absolutes, a system that values success as a win or die and not as a learning process is WRONG.

The movie ends in a graceful note, the moral values are beyond what society teaches, and "Cheaters" is a movie for the human race, it tries to put the matter into perspective and teach us what is wrong with the system and it does this with brilliant presence, nice script, very good acting and clever directing.

This is a jewel of a movie and one you should not miss.

A solid 9 out of 10.