Baird Academy is a prep school for forming young men, and though they claim to be forming the future leaders of the country, it appears to be populated almost entirely by those who you would never want to be in such a position. The one possible exception is Charlie Simms (Chris O'Donnell), who hails not from the old money of the Northeast, but from a tiny burg in Oregon and is attending Baird on a scholarship. He doesn't fit into the "in" crowd, and perhaps he shouldn't want to.
Yet Charlie is intimidated by them and their money nonetheless, so when he sees several of the boys setting up for a gag that sprays paint on the headmaster's car, he naturally assumes that he shouldn't be a snitch and tell what he knows, even though the headmaster offers to get him a free ride into Harvard. It's even less tempting when one of the other boys who was with him (played by Philip Seymour Hoffman) approaches him as a "friend" and says that they don't do that.
Going into the Thanksgiving weekend, Charlie doesn't know what to do, but he has taken a job to sit with a retired Colonel Frank Slade (Al Pacino), who is blind and not particularly happy about it - though it appears that he was a bit of a jerk even before he lost his sight. Nonetheless, Charlie intends to go through with his assignment so that he can go home for the Christmas holiday.
Unfortunately when Charlie gets to the house for his duty, and the rest of the family leaves, the Colonel packs them up and flies them (First Class!) to New York City. This is, needless to say, a bit of a surprise to Charlie, who planned to hang out around school and decide what to do.
Throughout the weekend he is immersed into the Colonel's world as they go through one last fling and the Colonel gets ready to say goodbye - he intends to stay in a nice hotel, eat a good meal, be with a woman, and then he plans to blow his brains out. When that time comes, however, Charlie won't let him do so, and finally the Colonel bows to the pressure and they return home. Only then does Charlie realize that now it's time to face the music. It's probably good that he didn't worry about it all weekend.
Once he is up on stage, and the disciplinary council convened, Charlie isn't sure what he will do, but then the Colonel comes in and sits with him, much as a lawyer would do in a courtroom, and after Charlie has decided that he won't turn in the others (even though his compatriot has done so), and that he faces expulsion, the Colonel gets up and gives a rousing speech about how the school is turning out weakness and not rewarding the courage that Charlie exhibits. It's actually rather moving.
The whole movie is quite good, and the dialogue throughout is good - the only drawback is that it is very long and it all takes a good while to unfold. It would have been much better if it was perhaps an hour shorter. As it is, it takes a very long time for everything to happen and there were many times where I wanted to get up and do something (which I did, since it was a recording).
Rated R for language and sexual content.
Comments