Three O’Clock High
By 1987, the so called 80s high school comedy had seemed to touch on nearly every nook and cranny of teenage life, especially in the work of John Hughes in particular and the remaining avenues for viable storylines and subjects had started to get pretty thin. Black comedy was probably the only recourse left for the genre (one which Heathers had filled very well) but there was also this effort as well, ironically enough executive produced by Steven Spielberg (who sadly had his name taken off the film which undoubtedly hurt its potential box office) and incredibly well directed by Phil Joanou, a guy who strangely enough went on to direct a concert film (U2 Rattle And Hum) and a bunch of other music videos along with the odd feature here and there. The film takes on as its basic premise the concept of bullying, but then elevates and expands upon it not only as a necessary rite of passage, but also as a fundamental step for any bullied person in order to learn self reliance and to take control of one’s own destiny in order to go on to live a better life. Weird (and politically incorrect in today’s anti bullying environment) as it may seem, the film works by having the real star of it be the bully himself: Buddy Revell as played by Richard Tyson, a hulking, leather jacketed uber badass with a major chip on his shoulder, and for good reason. He seems to have no friends whatsoever even as his reputation across several schools remains legendary, having been known to have beaten down on numerous occasions not only his fellow students, but also teachers and even a football coach! All of this is because he is a major “touch freak”, not liking when other males (we presume) try to touch him or push him around with their own belligerent, bullying manner, only for them to get what they’ve got coming to them. And despite (or because of) this badass rep that he carries, everywhere he goes people look upon him with fear and trepidation as if The Grim Reaper himself has just walked into their classroom. There’s also the possibility that his isolated existence has resulted in a social awkwardness that prevents him from having normal human interaction and just contributes to his ever present chip on his shoulder. Certainly he’s a far cry from other famous movie bullies like Thomas Wilson’s legendary Biff Tannen in Back To The Future or Kiefer Sutherland’s near demonic Ace Merrill in Stand By Me, but Revell is also a guy with his own twisted personal code of honor who definitely has his own way of doing things. He also doesn’t like smartasses, which is how he chooses his intended “target”: Jerry Mitchell as played by Casey Siemaszko, an actor who appeared in a ton of 80s films (including being one of the original Young Guns) before seeing his career reduced to the realm of character acting as he got older. Thankfully, Siemaszko’s Mitchell is NOT portrayed as being a hapless, hopeless nerd, but rather as a smart kid who stays out of trouble, can think on his feet, is trusted and respected by his teachers and school administrators and most importantly, has an obviously tight knit social circle of friends and associates who help keep him very grounded in a way that Revell himself does not have at all. On Revell’s first day at his new school, the rumors fly fast and furious about him and the fear is palpable in the air when he actually enters. Upon encountering Mitchell in the school lavatory, Mitchell attempts to talk to him only to put Revell off by not making his intentions at all clear, at which point Mitchell makes a snide, condescending remark about possible drug use on Revell’s part (not good) and follows that up by even more condescendingly patting him on the arm (even worse). Revell sees him for what he is and even knocks him around for a bit before setting it straight for him. The two of them are going to fight, after school, at three o’clock in the parking lot and there is NOTHING that he can do about it. Within minutes (literally), the word is out around the school and Mitchell’s name is instantly known by everybody before he has even done anything. This leads to most of the rest of the movie where Mitchell (naturally because he’s a coward) hilariously doing everything that he can to stop the fight from happening, including even framing Revell to get him thrown out of school, paying off a big jock football player (himself a legendary fighter) to take down Revell only to watch the guy get his own face broken rather easily by Revell, and trying to get himself put into detention so that he won’t be able to make it to the fight. But within the nightmarish fever dream that constitutes the style in which this story is told, the glaring truth that comes out is that Mitchell MUST take on this challenge and step up to Revell or he’ll probably just run away like a coward from everything else for the rest of his life. Watching Siemaszko playing his character as someone who is either embracing his manhood or going from being a beta male to that of an alpha (depending on how you look at it) over the course of the movie is a delight to see, but the film always hits its highest interest points whenever Richard Tyson is onscreen portraying the enigmatic contradiction that is Revell, never quite doing what is expected from a character of his type and always making you wonder if maybe he actually has his own agenda at play here since if all of his other fights as talked about (and a few that are seen here as one punch knockouts such as the football player) seemed to always be “spur of the moment” type things, then WHY give Mitchell a literal deadline in the form of a challenge which included giving him plenty of time to think about it?? It seems to be that with this challenge also comes a choice even as Revell knocks down plenty of roadblocks to make sure that the fight still happens, mostly because even Revell himself knows that the best thing for Jerry (who seems to be a pretty well off kid with a privileged background) is to accept the challenge and face his fears by standing up to Revell along with everything that is to come in his future. This in some ways turns Revell into a walking metaphor although Tyson (whose failure to reach superstardom in the years afterward remains bewildering to this day) does the otherworldly, almost all knowing aspect of the character very well, even throwing a monkey wrench into the mix later on by practically seeming to form a bond with Mitchell in what appears to be an attempt to “test” him in order to make sure that’s he made the right choice for an opponent. Of course the whole film would sink like the Titanic if Mitchell successfully found his way out of the fight, so we do get that big showdown after all at the end of the film, a spectacularly shot spectacle with literally hundreds of students screaming and cheering as if it were a major pay per view fight (and Revell is also fed a couple more deserved victims of his one punch KO style as well). The rest of the cast all get their licks in too besides the two stars, including Anne Ryan as the “freaky” girl (complete with pretend psychic powers) who is one of Mitchell’s best friends and biggest supporters, Jeffrey Tambor as the most passionate teacher in the world when it comes to running the school supplies store, Philip Baker Hall as the JUVI cop who naturally gets called in to look into the matter, John P. Ryan as the school principal (who refreshingly is not portrayed as being an unrelenting asshole and comes across as actually being more fair minded), Mitch Pileggi as the smarmy school security guard and even Yeardley (Lisa Simpson) Smith in a quick cameo as a gossiping cheerleader. But it is in the strength of the two lead characters (especially Revell) that drives this movie into unsung classic status, so popular among those who have seen it that both South Park and Family Guy have done entire episodes spoofing and paying homage to its greatness as it remains a masterpiece of its time comparable to Breakfast Club and Fast Times At Ridgemont High which puts it in extremely impressive company despite its lesser known reputation…
10/10