One Eight Seven

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One Eight Seven
Movie poster for 187
Directed by	Kevin Reynolds
Produced by	Bruce Davey Stephen McEveety
Written by	Scott Yagemann
Starring	Samuel L. Jackson John Heard Kelly Rowan Clifton Collins Jr.
Cinematography	Ericson Core
Editing by	Stephen Semel
Distributed by	Warner Bros. Icon Entertainment
Release date(s)	August 3, 1997 (U.S. release)
Running time	119 min.
Language	English Spanish
Budget	$23,000,000
IMDb profile

One Eight Seven (also known as 187) is a 1997 drama / crime / thriller film, starring Samuel L. Jackson, who plays a Los Angeles teacher caught up with gang trouble in an urban high school. The film was directed by Kevin Reynolds and its name comes from the California Penal Code number, called 187 (murder).

1 Plot summary
2 Themes
3 Cast
4 Trivia
5 Filming locations
6 See also
7 External links

[edit] Plot summary

Trevor Garfield is a high school science teacher at Roosevelt Whitney High School, a fictional high school in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City, New York. An African American gangster student to whom he had given a failing grade threatens to murder him, writing the number 187 on every page of one of Garfield's textbooks. The administration ignores the threat and the thug ambushes Garfield in the hallway, stabbing him in the back and side abdominal area multiple times with a shiv.

Fifteen months after surviving from the ordeal, Garfield, now a substitute teacher, has relocated to the fictional John Quincy Adams High School in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles, but the trouble starts again when he becomes a substitute to a rowdy, unruly class of rejects, including a Mexican American (Chicano) tag crew gang by the name of "Kappin' Off Suckers" (K.O.S.). Their leader, Benito "Benny" Chacón, a menacing felon attending high school as a condition of probation, makes it clear to Garfield that there will be no mutual respect between them.

The tension mounts when a fellow teacher, Ellen Henry, confides that Benny has threatened her life, an action against which the administration of the school refuses to take action, fearing legal threats. Ellen and Garfield develop a close friendship that approaches the beginnings of a relationship, but which is stymied by Garfield's diffident and destabilizing behavior, likely arising from PTSD and his confrontations with the K.O.S. Garfield's past also garners him the unwanted admiration of Dave Childress, a burned-out, alcoholic history teacher who carries and keeps guns at the school.

After Benny murders a rival tagger in cold blood, he inexplicably disappears, and Benny's severely unstable tag partner, César, takes over as leader and class antagonist. The conflict between Garfield and the K.O.S. escalates with the killing of Jack, Ellen's dog. César, after spraying cartoon graffiti depicting a dog with a "dead" face, is shot by Garfield with a drugged arrow in the chest. The boy collapses and wakes up to find one of his fingers cut off. A student Garfield has tutored, a Chicana by the name of Rita Martínez, faces continuing abuse from both the K.O.S. and Childress, and drops out. The school administration is depicted as hopelessly mired in bureaucracy and unable to intervene. After Benny is found dead in the Los Angeles River, apparently of a drug overdose, it becomes clear that Garfield, having slowly lost his sanity, has taken justice into his own hands, playing by the rules of the street in an intense contest with César and the K.O.S.

The K.O.S. plan to murder Garfield after they accuse him of killing Benny and amputating César's finger. The conflict comes to a head at Garfield's house, as the gang forces Garfield into a contest of Russian roulette with César, in which the latter's resolve is finally shaken. Hesitating at his turn, César watches as Garfield, offering to take his turn for him, snaps up the revolver and shoots himself in the head. Driven by his personal sense of honor and ignoring the advice of his horrified friends to leave immediately, César insists on taking his rightful turn and ends up killing himself in the same manner as his teacher.

Later on graduation day, Rita, who returns and completes her studies, offers a tribute to Garfield by reading an essay about him at commencement. The essay incorporates the theme of the pyhrric victory, which Garfield had once explained to her in a tutoring session. The film ends on a sombre note as Ellen, presumably disheartened at the incident, appears to leave the school.

[edit] Themes

As a means of creating a deep atmosphere, strongly toned lighting is used throughout scenes of 187. Examples include dark blue lighting of the high school hallways and a golden/orange in the classroom.

The film was given an R-rating by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), for strong violence, strong language, drug abuse and brief nudity.

[edit] Cast

Actor	Role
Samuel L. Jackson	Trevor Garfield
John Heard	Dave Childress
Kelly Rowan	Ellen Henry
Clifton Collins Jr.	César Sánchez
Tony Plana	Principal García
Karina Arroyave	Rita Martínez
Lobo Sebastian	Benny Chacón
Jack Kehler	Larry Hyland
Jonah Rooney	Stevie Littleton
Demetrius Navarro	Paco

[edit] Trivia

The antagonist's surname may be a tribute to the Garfield High School in California. The teacher Jaime Escalante who worked at the school received public acknowledgement for his work with poor minority students.