Knights of the South Bronx directed by Allen Hughes is a film based on a true story which touches the topics of children education, racism, and class difference. The story line starts when Richard Mason (played by Ted Danson) comes to elementary school in Bronx as a substitute teacher. He faces several difficulties in motivating his fourth-grade students to study and making them listen to him since they do not believe that obtaining educational degree can help them in life.
The conflict between the teacher and his students is the driver of the plot. This conflict is due to the racial and socioeconomic disparities between them. Mr. Mason is a white intellectual man who does not have any intention of becoming a permanent teacher, especially of children of such a young age. He wants to have some spare time to spend with his son as he could not do it with his previous job. Thus, he does not want to be involved in students’ situations and understand them. All students are black and Puerto Ricans and have problems with their families as they live in a neighborhood with high poverty and crime rate. The conflict between the teacher and the students resolves when Mr. Mason that these children get interested in chess game and he starts to teach them how to play it. The students eventually become better at the other aspects of life and grasp how education and chess game can transform their life.
Movie Evaluation Essay
Knights of the South Bronx is a movie by Allen Hughes released in 2005. It conveys the story of a real person named David MacEnulty, who was an exeptional chess player and brought children of the South Bronx elementary school to participate and win in chess championships (Bardwick). Ted Danson plays his role of a new substitute teacher as Richard Mason at school located at the south of Bronx. The film reveals the uneasy lives of black community at new York city and how children of this society is affected by this. As the new teacher comes from a different background, he finds it challenging to find a common language with his students. Eventually, he discovers an interest in chess as the solution to the communication problem. This is a light family movie which teaches kindness and importance of education for all children regardless of their race, ethnicity, and family background. The film covers many characters and their situations which displays the racism issue to a full extent. However, Knigths of the South Bronx lacks some elements which distort the overall impression of the work. Despite of the strong dialogues throughout the film, there is a poor character disclosure and the plot feels cramped as Hughes tried to transmit a lot of infromation given the movie is only about 90 minutes.
The movie leaves a profound impression on the audience with its deep dialogues between the characters. One of such talks happens between the boy Michelle with French roots and his father, a restaurant owner. When the father gets mad when he finds out his son participated in the chess championship, Michelle confronts his father. He says he was following his dreams and would prove his father that he can become a doctor by playing chess but not by helping at the restaurant. He reveals that there is a possibility of winning a scholarship to college if he manages to win the game (Knights of the South Bronx 1:07:00-1:07:50). This moment shows how parents try to control their children and do not trust their choices. Always introverted Michelle stands up for himself in front of his father and shares his inspiration and goals. It lets Michelle’s father perceive his son and becomes proud of him. Another example of a good dialogue is when Jimmy Washington (played by Malcolm David Kelley) meets his father for the first after he got into prison. The two decide to play chess, and Jimmy gets angry and frustrated when he loses the game. His father tells him that anger would not help Jimmy to win. He should work hard and learn to control his temper, otherwise he would end up as his father (Knights of the South Bronx 00:58:20-1:00:00). This is one of the strongest moments of the movie as their conversation demonstrates father’s care for his son. It illustrates that parents with criminal background are afraid that children may repeat their parents’ mistakes since it is easy to become deviant in a compromised environment.
Nonetheless, the presence of vivid dialogues does not help to reveal all the characters of the plot. The story includes many participants as the teacher and many students. Each of them has a problem in their lives and unfortunately, the movie does not go deep into the detail to stop at each character and his or her development. For instance, the student called Kenya has an addict mother. Once police officers bring her to school to inform Mr. Mason about her situation in her house. However, he does not do anything with this knowledge and the audience does not see any details of what happens in her life until the moment where she tells her mom that she feared her (Knights of the South Bronx 01:08:00-1:09:00). Then, it appears that the girl’s mom quitted drugs and started to look for a job (Knights of the South Bronx 01:15:35-1:16:00). The audience might feel a lot of plot gaps in these two character’s storylines as there is no display of their thoughts and not many words or actions from them. Similarly, there is no focus on another girl student, Renee. The writers do not give any kind of information on the girl’s family or any aspect of life other than her learning to play chess with other four students.
Moreover, the movie itself is quite short but it tries to capture all the events and characters in it. As an example, it starts from the new white teacher coming to a school which has a lot of black children and finishes with his students winning the national chess championship. Between these two events there are many actions and dialogues which gives an impression of stiffness and uneasiness as the movie proceeds. The audience can see how the teacher befriends the students, teaches them to play chess, becomes closer to his own son, and how each student overcomes the family issues. These all come with the exciting events at the tournament where children lose their first game and then quickly become masters of chess game. Similarly, Mr. Mason has a difficulty to communicate with his son, and resolves this issue by just attending one minute of his son’s baseball game (Knights of the South Bronx 01:12:00-1:12:30). This feels a little unrealistic since there is no other effort which can bring the plot to the great relationship between these characters. Hence, it is hard to follow all the incredible changes which happen in this film work.
The critic David Cornelius writes on his review on Knights of the South Bronx, “stubbornly refuses to rise above its own genre, sticking so closely to the formula that it winds up earning more snickers than applause” (Cornelius). He evaluates the movie in a very negative way which I disagree with. In spite of the gaps in the plot and its rapid development, the movie fulfils its goal of explaining the importance of education for children. It gives a lot of food for thought for anyone who watches it and deserves applause for its great acting cast, deep dialogues, and inspirational motif.
In conclusion, the movie directed by Allen Hughes conveys a true story of a white teacher trying to educate children with different ethnic origin with the help of chess game. It has many strong dialogues which reveal the hardships between parent and child relationship, especially when it is an African American family living in Bronx. Despite of this, Hughes wanted to insert many ideas and character stories in a short movie which made it overwhelming. Because of that, it is difficult to give a deep character analysis and follow all the changes happening throughout the work. Nevertheless, the movie achieves its aim of getting people’s attention on the racism issue and the need to provide all children with opportunities for education and a bright future.
Works Cited
Bardwick, Todd. “CSCA Informant – Knights of the South Bronx Review.”Chess Academy of Denver, Colorado Master Chess, 2006.
Cornelius, David. Review of Knights of the South Bronx, by Allen Hughes. DVDTalk.com, 2007.
Knights of the South Bronx. Directed by Allen Hughes, performance by Ted Danson, A&E, 2005.