IslandGuru Who payed the critics

Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

Kidskycom It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

Gary The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

redrobin62-321-207311 Man! Talk about a bore fest! I haven't been this bored since timeout in Kindergarten. You all know the story - a psycho teacher decides to teach two of his misbehaving students a lesson even though only one of the students was a miscreant. The other was just having a bad go at life living with his overbearing, obnoxious older brother.Truth be told, he should've been teacher the other misbehaving students in his class "The Lesson." Better still, if after 20 years of hating teaching, why didn't he just move on to something else, like sweeping streets or filing papers in an office somewhere? By the way, the two students in his torture chamber we're being taught "The Lesson," we in the audience are! What did we learn from "The Lesson" boys and girls? We learned to stay clear away from artsy- fartsy preaching, moralizing films because they will bore you to death.

J M IRISH Have read a lot about this film and it's independent, creative,thoughtful persona. Has a docudrama / realist heart , getting down there to the "real"people on the council estates with all these problems (mostly via male emotional betrayal and bullying) that lead to classic alienation from education, culture, love, and playing a positive role in a society (in this film unmentioned in terms of poverty, economic exploitation and inequality). Thus, the effect on the cultured, educated English teacher of these ill cultured crude schoolboys who disrupt and abuse him in his classes is for him to become a vicious, psychotic kidnapper and murderer. And thus rescuing the working class laddo and lassie from their grimness, lifting them into a chocolate box cottage life of Oxbridge culture. Arty rubbish is how I felt watching this mish mash of styles and ideas. This film reminded me of the gymnasium scene from Andersons' "If" where the rebel Mick is beaten into submission and then has to shake the hand of his establishment bully.

koile-85 This movie knows what it wants to be! The camera is excellent, glamorous wide-shots juxtaposed with gray small-town rut, and personal small hand-cam shots. Muted colors of violence, boredom and frustration versus literal enlightenment through physical torture. The cast is really solid, the movie educates us with it's own story. The music keeps and/or juxtaposes the scenes perfectly. The writer/director Ruth Plath is clearly someone to look out for in the future. The expertly composed pictures, the story of the story of modern society and it's relation to literature, the wonderful maelstrom of violence... Reminds me a bit of Nicolas Winding Refn's work. On a more metaphysical level then a really comparable one. I could go on and on and on.9/10 because like 3 scenes didn't work that well in my opinion. But that's just nitpicking.WATCH THIS MOVIE! It's really good.

HorrorOverEverything The premise for this really caught my interest, a teacher getting revenge on some disrespectful little brats? Sign me up. Unfortunately while watching this it became very clear that this was not going to be an ultra gory torture/revenge flick, instead it played out more like an indie drama that just happened to have a horror premise.It starts off alright enough, the two boys are unlikable but I figured that was OK since the premise of the movie is about them being kidnapped/tortured. The big problem here though is that once the boys do get captured almost the entire rest of the movie is one big monologue delivered by the teacher character. This wouldn't be so bad if it was interesting dialogue, but it really isn't, he basically just goes through a bunch of things that the boys were supposed to learn in his class. This all leads up to a very underwhelming finale.Once everything was all said and done I didn't really feel anything, the movie never had me attached or interested in any of the characters. There are a few scenes that I could tell were suppose to be artsy/deep but they just felt forced. Overall I just wasn't into this, there isn't enough drama to make this a good indie drama and there definitely isn't enough horror to make this a good horror movie. There really isn't much to see here and you would probably be better off skipping it.3/10