Renaissance Man

It’s DeVito doing DANGEROUS MINDS, TO SIR WITH LOVE etc. and he’s good company here, in a surprisingly tamped down and “realistic” characterisation; unfortunately the film overall is too rote and predictable and might have benefited from his more typically acidic persona to provide a bit more spark. Needlessly convoluted in its set-up (unless I missed a “based on a true story” title card, why not make DeVito a failed school teacher, rather than setting him up as an ad-man when that *never* plays into the story in any other way?), but if you’re fond of this sort of fluff (or indeed of DeVito), it’s enjoyable enough, with the students a stereotypically rag-tag bunch. I wish I’d known in high school that the key to understanding Shakespeare was to repurpose his plays as rap songs!